


silver line (i’ll save you every time)

by softshocks



Category: Bayonetta (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, lots of downtime and domesticity, lots of not talking about their feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-05-15 07:58:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19291546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softshocks/pseuds/softshocks
Summary: The snark was easy. Repressing feelings as Cereza filled pockets of her life that remained untouched until her return, however, was not.





	1. don't wake the lover / the spell i'm under

**Author's Note:**

> I have fallen into the void of bayonetta and the fact that she’s a sagittarius while jeanne is a capricorn is TRULY ripping me apart at the seams
> 
> These are just self indulgent headcanons about their domestic life sewn up together aimlessly, and maybe some purging of jeanne and cereza feelios that strike me at exactly 23:00 because I don’t know what to do with everything I love about them, together and individually. Obviously writing a two or three part series is the only way to go about it
> 
> Thanks to [izzy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximalist/pseuds/maximalist) for looking through this and indulging my void screams! 
> 
> Awesome [art](https://satineart13.tumblr.com/post/186688593102/felt-like-drawing-some-bayojeanne-after-reading) by toxikonsart on tumblr!

_Light Killer_ ceases its rumble when she turns the keys to shut the engine off. Cereza climbs off from being seated at the back of Jeanne’s bike, and steps on the curb of her place of residence, a high rise building in the middle of the city.

“Thanks for the ride, you’re not a shabby driver yourself,” Cereza says, taking off her helmet and placing it on the seat of Jeanne’s beloved bike. “Despite your lack of respect for road rules and driver safety.”

(“Won’t you be wearing one?” asks Cereza, a tone that Jeanne recognized to be Cereza’s genuine one.

“Helmets are for sissies,” Jeanne tells her, but in all honesty, she just thought her head needed to breathe after feeling like she was in an enclosed area for the duration of Balder’s control.)

“You arrived in one piece. Perhaps that merits at least one star on any ride-hailing service.” Jeanne shrugs, but she feels so many parts of her body start to sag from the exhaustion. Tomorrow is going to be a bitch and she’ll probably spend it asleep, recovering, for sure.

Cereza laughs, and it’s still pretty even if she mirrors Jeanne’s exhaustion. Taking down God herself was no walk in the park.

Silence befalls them, and Jeanne just has her fill of looking at Cereza — truly looking at Cereza, as herself, finally free and finally understanding that Cereza is here, alive. Hundreds of years between them. So much to talk about. So much to share.

It shifts from a subtle relief to an overwhelming one that washes over Jeanne’s entire being and she doesn’t know what to do with it except take the emotion, put it in a box for later, and look away from Cereza to start her bike’s engine.

“I meant it, you know.” Cereza starts, over the whirring, but Jeanne hears her all the same. When it takes a moment for Jeanne to understand what she meant, she elaborates, “us. Coming home together. Sharing one.”

 _It’s too much,_ her head chants, and it’s getting progressively louder that Jeanne winces slightly. “I’m not the best flatmate, Cereza.” It was true. Coming home drunk, late nights and late mornings, sleeping on the desk with papers strewn about. “I’m a teacher. I practically swim in an Olympic pool of papers.”

“I don’t mind,” is all Cereza says, with those eyes, that voice, and that face.

Nearly five hundred years have passed and Jeanne still can’t say no to this woman.

“I’ll think about it,” Jeanne replies, revving her engine, but her mind is set. For some reason, Cereza knows that her answer is a big, resounding _yes._

She returns to her flat, clears out the guest room which has been a home to discarded clothes that she should probably send to the launders tomorrow and makes a mental note to pick Cereza up at noon or at whatever time she wakes up the next day.

But for now, Jeanne rests.

-

“I think that’s the last of it,” Cereza says, setting down the final box of her belongings on the floor, beside the plush couch Jeanne had picked up during the Bauhaus boom a few decades ago.

Cereza only had few belongings that were for home decor. Her weapons were stashed away neatly in the garage, and the paper bags of designer clothing remain unpacked and unopened, on the floor of the spacious spare room Jeanne offered as Cereza’s permanent quarters.

“Would a couple of centuries make you a terrible cohabitant, Cereza?” Jeanne throws a sly glance at her best friend, and she can only appreciate it now, considering the first time they crossed paths Balder was in reins of her cognitive processes. Cereza looks away to huff indignantly, and Jeanne takes the chance to shake the thought of mind control away.

It only took a couple of centuries, and a whole lot of things happening in between for them to be here, at this very moment, as Jeanne and Cereza. She wasn’t about to let a few sour thoughts ruin the quiet happiness of having Cereza within her vicinity. Happy. Alive. Herself.

“I may have lost my memory _but_ I do know that I am not a slob.”

Jeanne clucks her tongue. All that time has passed, yet poking at Cereza will always remain one of her favorite activities.  “You’ll have to show me, then.”

Cereza does the thing, where she’s the Bayonetta that fights angels: her lips quirked into a smirk and her chin tilted, and a certain glint in her eyes. “Oh, I will,” she drawls. It’s incredibly sexy, clearly a façade, and it seems as if she is deeply enjoying seeing Jeanne roll her eyes, but not without a deep blush that matches her blouse.

Jeanne cursed the day Cereza realized she had charm and wit, and copious amounts of sexual confidence. Cereza just… knows the effect she has on people, who truly eat up the whole _seven feet tall lady with a pretty face, great tits, a nice accent, and wits sharper than a blade_ thing going on. She knows Cereza’s more than that, despite their years apart, but Jeanne curses herself for most likely sharing the same reaction as many people.

(What Cereza doesn’t know is that Jeanne has… sort of been in love with her. For the longest time. She’d rather not elaborate on that now - perhaps later, in the privacy of her room and a couple of drinks in.)

“If that works on that young man, it doesn’t do it for me,” Jeanne counters, busying herself with checking her mail, except she’s lying. Because it absolutely does it for her, and she would rather face Jubileus fifty times if it meant Cereza would never find out. “You haven’t changed, Cereza. Always making sure you have people at your beck and call.”

“Me? It’s not as if _I_ was the one with a trail young Umbran witches that doted on me and gave me gifts of affection.” Cereza sounds mock-affronted, and Jeanne can’t help but laugh as she applied some lipstick, but she stops prematurely, at a realization.

“Your memory reaches that far now?” She looks at Cereza curiously, and while the other woman clearly wants to laugh at her unfinished lipstick work, she nods anyway, but does not elaborate. Jeanne doesn’t push, only returns to applying lipstick with Cereza watching her intently, possibly unwarranted concern etched all over her face. Jeanne looks away to focus on her lips.

The air changes, and there are things for them to talk about, but she isn’t ready. Jeanne settles for something light, instead. “You needn’t have worried about my harem of girls before. My attention was only for you and being the Umbran heiress.”

It was true. She spent all her time with Cereza, and she is aware that most of the isolation Cereza endured from their peers was partly because Jeanne favored _her_ amongst others.

Cereza says nothing, only walks closer to the mirror and sets her hands on Jeanne’s shoulders. Jeanne looks at her, and it’s a familiar face of Cereza asking for permission for physical contact.

There were five hundred years between them, and Jeanne can imagine how Cereza must have assumed that Jeanne’s affection preference must have changed.

It hasn’t. She leans back, resting her weight on Cereza’s lithe and warm form. “Thank you for having me,” Cereza says, sincerely. No façade. No snark. Just genuine thanks that Jeanne hasn’t heard in a long, long time.

She wasn’t ready for that, and she doesn’t think she ever will be, but Jeanne only nods. _Thank you for coming back_ , she thinks, but she doesn’t say it.

-

Cereza, as Jeanne expected, is a lovely cohabitant.

Clean, awake while the sun is light and young, and is quiet as a mouse. Jeanne is almost embarrassed that she is the complete opposite.

When she wakes, Jeanne is greeted by a lovely meal with a pot of coffee to get her on her way.

She returns to Cereza lounging on the couch with her book or her laptop, and a set-aside meal waiting to be microwaved. “Cereza, you are a _darling_ ,” is what Jeanne would always tell her, and she receives a wink that makes her blush a deep red that matches her clothes.

They talk about their days; about Jeanne’s encounters with her students and with Cereza’s as a nun.

(“A _what?_ You do not jest?”

Cereza rolls her eyes. “It brings the Laguna to me,” is all she says as an explanation.

It brings Jeanne back to earth from a short laughing fit. “Well, I suppose you’re right.”

What she wasn’t prepared for was seeing Cereza in the habit, which had done some things to her that Jeanne would rather not speak of.)

Cereza even takes on the job of waking Jeanne up, which is a rather daunting task if she says so herself. She also leaves an aspirin and some rehydration salts for Jeanne’s pending hangovers when she’s had too much to drink at the club - either alone, with friends, or with Cereza who carries her bridal style and sets her on the bed.

(Jeanne is sweaty all over, but suddenly she’s in her underwear with Cereza above her.

She is drunk out of her mind, but she knows she isn’t naked how she wants to be with Cereza, who isn’t above her the way she wants.

“Jeanne, drink this,” Cereza says, and tilts her head up for a cool drink that she feels all the way to the top of her head.

In her stupor, Jeanne looks up at Cereza and touches her face. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she mumbles, completely out of control of her mind-mouth coordination. She wants to say _you’re so beautiful, please kiss me, I have waited for you for so long,_ but some semblance of sanity and sobriety prevents her.

“Same sentiments,” Cereza says, wipes the sweat from Jeanne’s forehead, then she leaves Jeanne in her bed to fetch a pail.)

Cereza had been perfect and Jeanne anticipated it, knowing how Cereza was like when they were children.

As an apology for being a semi-terrible roommate, she buys Cereza boxes upon boxes of her favorite tea, expensive and hard to find, and brews her one every night when they’re seated next to each other talking about their days.

Jeanne had been alone for so long, yet Cereza fit her life as nicely as a puzzle piece she hadn’t anticipated to fill the spaces of her life with utter satisfaction.

She pushes the fear of this coming to an end, for one reason or another, to the farthest and darkest part of her mind.

-

There’s a school outing and Jeanne leaves before Cereza even wakes, and miraculously Jeanne’s phone with blaring air horns shook her awake.

She is awake, at the cost of trauma. But awake.

Jeanne leaves some of the tea she makes in the pot and, some eggs benedict she whipped up in witch time. She leaves a sticky note on the table: _enjoy, be back tonight. Behave yourself while I’m away. -J x_

-

It’s a late night checking midterm papers of her students, and try as she might to love them, she circles the twentieth subject-verb agreement error on her seventh paper of the night.

Jeanne pinches the bridge of her nose and exhales heavily, gathering the strength to go on before circling the elementary mistake but a piercing scream coming from Cereza’s room shocks her to tear the paper in half.

“Cereza,” Jeanne mumbles to herself before dashing to take her weapons from the holsters displayed in the living room and barging into Cereza’s room expecting the worst of the hierarchy of Laguna for Cereza. “I thought we were done—” She yells, but halts to find everything as is in Cereza’s room, with her friend still in bed, whimpering from what Jeanne knows is a nightmare.

She sets her guns down immediately, then rushes to the bed to shake Cereza awake. “Cereza,” says Jeanne urgently. To see her efforts are futile, she takes the water on the side table, beside their picture, and dumps it on her face.

That does the trick, and Cereza is awake in no time, looking around with fear before relaxing to see Jeanne looking down at her. “O-oh, Jeanne, what…”

“You had a nightmare,” says Jeanne, exhaling the breath she’s been holding in, “which will probably give _me_ a nightmare. Goodness.” She snaps her fingers to dry Cereza off, who hadn’t even realized her face was damp from the water to wake her up.

Sitting up, her friend rubs at her eyes while Jeanne tentatively takes a seat. “Sorry, I didn’t realize that my dreams have grown… intense.”

“Don’t you worry,” Jeanne tells her honestly. The woman in front of her now is unlike the Bayonetta she’s seen in battle, with all the bravado. She resembles the child she’d known forever, the teenager she had a crush on, and the woman she’s loved and loved enough to protect despite the onslaught of loneliness. Jeanne’s heart hurts, and seeing Cereza like this - unguarded, vulnerable - had been rare sights that only Jeanne had access to. She bites her lip and looks away to make the room feel less heavy. “Would you like to… talk about… it?” God, she was terrible at this, but damn her if she wasn’t going to try.

Expectedly, Cereza shakes her head and relief washes over Jeanne that she does not have to deal with the heaviness today. She nods, makes a move to stand, but Cereza’s hand finds her wrist but the other woman lets it go at once when Jeanne’s attention turns to her again. “If… if it’s not too much, would you—would you stay with me tonight?”

Jeanne considers this, obsessively tosses the idea of being that close to Cereza after everything and all the time they spent apart, but Cereza looks at her with those light grey eyes that Jeanne remembers she is helpless to this woman’s needs and wants just as she was all those years ago, even if Cereza never asked.

Now, Cereza was asking and Jeanne would gladly give it to her.

Nodding, Jeanne thanks the gods that may be that she checked her papers in her sleep clothes, and that she slips under the covers beside Cereza, whose warmth bleeds through the blanket.

“Better?” she asks, awkward with her presence, but Cereza’s labored breathing slowed down once again.

“Significantly,” and Jeanne can see the tension melting off the other woman.

“Good. We used to do this a lot, actually.”

Cereza turns to face her, the blankets ruffling and Jeanne’s gaze never leaves the ceiling. The thought of seeing Cereza in the dim light matched with an overwhelming attraction that’s been simmering for centuries won’t do either of them any good. “Oh?” Her interest is piqued.

“I’d often sneak you into my room. It pained me to see you sleep on that terrible mattress.” She also loved Cereza’s company, and there was always something to talk about in a way that children always did. She remembered craving Cereza’s company, always seeking her out, and Jeanne never gave it much thought until she was older.

Jeanne risks a peek at the woman beside her and it’s exactly as she imagined: the dim light from the moon that gives them their powers casting a nice and minimal light on Cereza’s face, sharp in the daylight but now soft in the absence of it. She’s looking at her with piercing grey eyes that are filled with amusement. “What?” She thanks all the beings that the darkness hides her being a blushing mess.  _Come on, Jeanne, you are the Umbran Elder. Get a grip._  

“I think I remember.”

“You do?”

Nodding, Cereza lies on her back. “Most of the things I remember now include you.” There she is again. No snark, no façade. Just sincerity that throws Jeanne off every. Damn. Time.

Her chest constricts at the confession. She can imagine that so many parts of Cereza’s life must be painful, but she was glad that she took up the happier side of it. “Yet you are aware the bad ones can’t be left behind.”

Surprisingly, Cereza chuckles at Jeanne’s minute warning. “I am.”

“Good.” The fatigue catches up to her, now that she’s in bed away from papers that need checking. She can resume tomorrow.“Good night, Cereza,” Jeanne says through a yawn.

(“ _Jeanne, do you think I’ll ever be a good witch?” Cereza asked, clutching Cheshire closer._

_That makes Jeanne sit up in bed, momentarily ridding Charles of the duvet they spent a few minutes tucking him and Cheshire into.  “Of course, silly! Why don’t you think so?”_

_The other girl shrugs. “They were talking about it.”_

_Jeanne saw how they treated Cereza and she doesn’t like it, and she absolutely hates how Mummy never answered her questions about why Cereza and her mummy never spent much time together and why Cereza can’t spend nights at her chambers. She touches Cereza’s cheeks. “No. You will be the bestest witch ever. Believe me.” She squeezes a bit for good measure. “When I’m older and I become the elder, I’ll make sure no one treats you like that ever again. Understood?”_

_Cereza nods before Jeanne brings her into a fierce hug until they fell asleep, and her Mummy finds them with their fingers linked._ )

A warm hand finds hers underneath the blankets. “Good night, Jeanne.”

-

Cereza sits on the opposite side of the table, unfolding the newspaper as Jeanne checks her mail. For once, Jeanne is actually a few minutes behind schedule as sleeping beside Cereza has made it significantly more convenient to wake up.

She is kind and gentle when she wants to be, but relentless in ensuring Jeanne doesn’t ask for ten more additional five minutes to sleep.

The other woman peers at her above the paper she’s holding. “I recall you having a school-wide administration meeting to attend to.”

It sinks in, momentarily, in Jeanne’s subconscious. Then it hits her with a: “ _Fuck_! Right!”

Jeanne is the elder of the Umbran witches, with no court to scold her for using her powers to dress as quickly as possible and head out the door and into the garage, but not without a kiss to Cereza’s cheek and a small, “thank you, you’re the best.”

(At the meeting, Jeanne dozes off for cumulatively twenty minutes. She texts Cereza: _this could have been an e-mail._

 _Shall we make company-wide meetings that could have been an e-mail corporal punishment in Inferno,_ came Cereza’s reply.

Jeanne could barely hold the laugh, guaranteeing the stares of her colleagues. The small smile never leaves her face.)

-

It’s a quiet night in after stepping on the necks of some angels downtown for their respective contracts, and Jeanne, two cups of tea in her hands, finds Cereza perched on the couch at the study, purposely scrolling through her browser.

Her forehead is knotted, her tongue slightly sticking out as she pours her attention at the screen and the task at hand. Jeanne thinks, _pretty_ , wants to kiss the back of her neck, but she shakes the thought away and scolds herself for even allowing that image to cross her headspace.

“Whatever matter is in need of your one hundred percent attention?” Jeanne sets down the teacups on the coasters laid out on the small table beside Cereza, one hand finding the lovely couch she acquired at an auction in turn-of-the-century England and the other on Cereza’s bare shoulder, exposed by her sweater falling to the side. Jeanne, by the miracle of any deity, congratulates herself for the bare minimum and keeping it there without panicking.

Cereza looks up from where Jeanne peered down at the screen, then turns attention back to the task at hand. “Just purchasing some tickets to a concert.”

“Concert?” Jeanne had known Cereza loved music, but somehow in this century, she hadn’t thought that any of the current artists would catch her attention given she had less time to adjust to contemporary times than Jeanne. She takes a seat, genuinely curious about the artist that caught her best friend’s attention.

“I’d say I don’t live under a rock, but considering the past hundred years…” Cereza trails off, the often loaded statement that Jeanne isn’t quite ready to talk about yet is made light by her soft chuckle. “I’m purchasing tickets to Lady Gaga’s tour.”

That… was poignant. Jeanne was partial to the artist as well, and Cereza liking her enough to purchase front row tickets was as right as rain. “I can imagine how you must like her, especially when her creative trajectory went rather _dark_.”

“Clearly. I thoroughly enjoyed her second and third records.” After a beat. “Would you like to join me? Tickets, my treat.”

Jeanne shrugs. “Why not. Let me know which date you get and I’ll clear out my entire day.”

There’s a small ping that comes from the laptop. “Purchased, and it’ll be on the eighth of October.” She shuts the device, takes the tea, and turns to Jeanne, who is perched on the arm of the couch. “Thank you for this. You’re lovely.”

She fights the blush that makes her face, and before Jeanne can retort something, Cereza cuts her off. “What kind of music do you like?”

That throws her off, but it’s better than Cereza commenting on how Jeanne reacts to comments such as those. “I prefer music of the twentieth century, but sonatas and concertos still do something to me.” She taps her chin thoughtfully. “I’m not opposed to some pop as well. You?”

“Well, I do love Billie Holiday, and some Frank Sinatra, as you know,” Cereza tells her and Jeanne did know. “The like. Some pop, here and there. I should probably expand my tastes.”

Jeanne has the answer to that. She brings Cereza to her room and shows the other woman her vast collection of CDs, records, and cassette tapes. “I know the modern age has brought us music on demand, but I never had the heart to throw these away."

Cereza marvels at the plastic cases stacked neatly displayed on the shelf. It towers over them, and Jeanne had quite a lot of time in her hands. “You are truly a history teacher, did you know that?” She redirects her awe at Jeanne, and Jeanne looks away, unable to deal with that look in her eyes when they’re in close proximity that Jeanne can smell Cereza’s body wash from where she’s standing. “Which of these are your favorites?”

Running her fingers along the plastic spines, arranged alphabetically, she picks out her favorites and some that she thinks Cereza will like.

Her favorites from the last century: some Joy Division, Blondie, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joan Jett. She assumes Cereza would like Madonna, and some Kylie Minogue. She hands them to Cereza. “As for the newer recommendations, my students recently taught me how to make playlists on music streaming apps.”

“That’d be splendid,” Cereza says, in that tone that always throws Jeanne off. They’re very close to each other, and the heat of Cereza’s body seeping into her own with her heart thundering in her chest and the ringing of her ears have reached nearly deafening heights. Jeanne meets Cereza’s eyes, but it falls to the bow of her lips and the attractive and utterly distracting concentration of melanin on her face.

She considers leaning in and throwing her all her worries and apprehension out the window, but when she’s about to do so, fear gets the best of her.

She looks away, tries to quell the intensity of the moment, tries to swallow the hundreds of years and a few more of attraction and devotion to the woman before her, even under Balder’s control.

When she refocuses on Cereza’s eyes, the glazed look that had been there dissolves into neutrality, which was quickly replaced by coyness that Jeanne equates to fences, if not walls, blocking her view.

“You’re free to play music, whenever you want. This is your home, too,” Jeanne says as a means of diverting the attention, moving away, but Cereza’s eyes follow her keenly and it physically aches not to have kissed her but the moment has passed, and the fear has not subsided. “Not a lot of things can wake me, anyway.”

They go about their nightly routines as if that moment by Jeanne’s shelves hadn’t happened at all.

Cereza hasn’t had nightmares, and Jeanne feels well rested in the morning despite the infernal pains of waking up early and checking papers. But tonight, Jeanne reckons she’ll be awake, spinning that moment obsessively in her head until it hurts.

That night, Cereza doesn’t hold her hand before they sleep but when she drifts off, her leg nestles itself on top of Jeanne’s own.

-

Jeanne finds the other woman asleep on their couch after a day of fulfilling contracts - as a nun, Jeanne adds belatedly, and with embarrassment for herself at every single _non-platonic_ thought that crosses her mind - listening to one of the discs Jeanne lent on the home speaker system they bought, and Luka installed for them.  

Seeing Cereza sleeping soundly, in their living room that’s bathed in the dusk sun on the brink of hiding for the night, was a sight that Jeanne never thought she’d have.

 _Lucky_ , Jeanne thinks. Sleeping beside her so the nightmares don’t come. Waking her up so she avoids being late for school. Making her breakfast. Seeing her on the other side of the table, reading the daily news. Running errands together. Sitting at the study, reading and checking papers. _Lucky, lucky, lucky._  

Cereza filled out the pockets of her life that were bone-dry and empty for the past hundreds of years. It fit, like a warm sock during the winter, and a large puzzle piece in her life Jeanne was too despaired and controlled to ever notice or even bother looking for.

Then Cereza comes, and just… makes the time they spent apart look like it was nothing of difficulty adjusting. _Maybe it had always been there,_ Jeanne thinks with hope, but she swallows it down, afraid anyone else in this world would catch wind of it and hurt them both again.

Jeanne takes a seat on the arm of the sofa, by Cereza’s head, admiring the face of the woman she has always loved with ferocity and stubbornness even under Balder’s control, trying to swallow the feelings that she is _sure_ will destroy this lovely thing that Jeanne would go to war with Paradiso and Inferno for.

When Cereza stirs, Jeanne busies herself with her phone and asks what she wants for dinner with disturbing nonchalance, as if she hasn’t been pondering on her very potent emotions towards Cereza. She locks for the time being.

(Later, as she checks endless papers, she takes out her phone and makes a playlist - albeit, with moderate difficulty - and names it: _for cereza_. She feels the space between her chest tighten.

In the morning, she hears Cereza play it while she’s showering or making breakfast, and Jeanne tries to swallow the hope that blooms in her chest.

Unlike most aspects of her very long life, Jeanne fails.)


	2. don't burn, my hope / don't let the moonlight leave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanessa taps her chin. “So you aren’t entirely sure that she remembers you guys were—how do I put this lightly—in love, way back when?” 
> 
> “We weren’t.” Jeanne clips. Cereza was just as confusing then about this whole ordeal as she was now. 
> 
> “ _You_ were.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing has changed I still feel the bayojeanne feelios every 23:00 like clockwork. I also forgot to mention that the title is from lykki li’s silver line!
> 
> Some brief mentions of canon-typical violence
> 
> Without further ado, here are some 500-yr old women acting like a bunch of lovesick wlw young adults!

“That’ll be a hundred twenty dollars and sixty cents.” 

Jeanne takes out her credit card to pay, with Cereza at her side, reading through the latest issue of _Harper’s Bazaar_ quietly until: “Damn it, I forgot that special laundry soap you liked.” Before Jeanne can tell her it’s fine, she’s hurried off, and Jeanne curses Cereza under her breath for leaving her with the young cashier who looks like she’s about to engage her in polite conversation. 

“You and your wife are adorable,” she—Stef, as her name tag displays—tells her, giggling. “My girlfriend also makes sure to get the grocery products I liked, too.” 

Jeanne’s stomach drops, and she feels her face heat up considerably. Her pallor betrays her every time, and she absolutely _hates_ it. Wives? She doesn’t even have the guts to tell Cereza she’s liked her since they were children, and all these centuries have passed only for things to stay the same. 

She clears her throat, the back of her neck and face burning, looking everywhere except at Stef the cashier. “Uh, quite a funny story actually,” starts Jeanne, thinking of a way to not reveal too much information about herself to a complete stranger but feeling a strong urge to explain. 

She and Cereza, together? _How absurd,_ Jeanne thinks. It seems that she is very good at lying to herself. 

The girl coughs, snapping Jeanne back from her internal court hearing, expecting a follow-up. Before Jeanne can explain any further, denying anything romantic with the conviction that mirrors summoning Sheba, Cereza returns with Jeanne’s favorite soaps and a few seaweed chips they love snacking on during lazy afternoons. “Sorry it took so long, I noticed they have these stocked again,” Cereza holds up the small packets of seaweed. She notices the cashier, standing awkwardly, and Jeanne, profusely blushing and looking elsewhere. “Am I interrupting something?” 

Stef the cashier turns to Cereza and smiles. “I was just telling your wife that you make an adorable couple.” 

Jeanne has known Cereza enough to notice the small surprise that flits past her face, yet it would have escaped just about anyone else. She smiles back her _Bayonetta_ smile, and while Jeanne shouldn’t think it’s attractive, she most certainly does. 

“Thank you,” says Cereza—Jeanne absolutely _cannot believe her_ yet she is not surprised that Cereza would actually pull at the poor girl’s leg, at her expense!—and tilts her head in Jeanne’s general direction. “It appears I got lucky with her.” 

 _She—did she just—_ Jeanne’s thoughts sputter at the thought of being married to Cereza. The incredulity renders Jeanne speechless, and her brain just stops registering anything for a short period of time that it only strikes her that Cereza used her card to pay instead once they’re outside, placing their eco-bags in her summon void. 

“Cat got your tongue, Jeanne?” Oh, Cereza ever so smug, clearly enjoying turning Jeanne into a blushing schoolgirl. “You’re awfully quiet and not voicing out your general displeasure about everything in the twenty-first century.”

 _Despicable._ There is much to be displeased about, and Cereza knows this. She tells her so and receives chuckles which obviously meant _I know, I’m kidding_. 

Jeanne is not about to talk about how she does _not_ want to be Cereza’s wife, does _not_ have intense feelings for her that it quite literally keeps her up at night with the other woman warming the left side of her bed, and absolutely despises the way Cereza seems to get a kick out of this. 

She is not about to have another meltdown about this, much less in public _and_ within the vicinity of the subject of her meltdown. Jeanne tosses the black helmet at Cereza in retaliation, and she mounts her bike with a satisfied hum when it nearly slips out of Cereza’s hands, too busy being smug. 

Cereza takes her usual spot behind Jeanne, wrapping her arms around her, tighter than usual. It’s one of her favorite things, now that Cereza’s returned, but she’d rather walk through Inferno and back on glass shards than admit it. 

“You are impossible,” Jeanne mutters, starting the engine. She drives off and drowns herself in the sound of the highway and her roaring bike before Cereza has a chance to respond. 

-

A sharp pain flashes through her in her sleep, and it shakes Jeanne awake. 

“Ugh,” she groans, sitting up, massaging her eye sockets with the heels of her hands.

It was the same pain when Balder took the reins. It was the same dream. 

She plops back down to her side of the bed. Cereza sleeps soundly, and Jeanne tries to get some sleep, hopes for no more nightmares tonight because she has a dreadfully early morning tomorrow.

-

“Anyone special in your life, Jeanne?” Her friend swirls the red liquid in her glass, which had been transferred from one of many medical blood bags stored in Vanessa’s very spacious refrigerator. 

“No one, actually,” Jeanne says flippantly, obviously lying and thinking about Cereza wistfully. Her only other friend, perhaps many millennia older than she and Cereza, watches her with perceptive, all-black eyes might look like a regular pair when she’s around mortals.

Jeanne knows better than to lie to the oldest demon—a _lilitu,_ even—that has ever graced the planet with her presence, but she still does it anyway. 

“What about that girl of yours, from way back? Aren’t you two living together?” It’s a loaded question, and Vanessa knows what they both mean to each other. 

Jeanne frowns. “We are, but that’s nothing.” To prove her point, her phone lights up with a message from the woman in question; an image with her, Luka, and Rodin back at the seedy _Gates of Hell._ Unbidden, a smile makes its way to her face and Vanessa, damn her, catches it before she has the chance to wipe it off. 

“Uh-huh, that’s not nothing.” The lilitu is barely convinced and Jeanne is doing a piss-poor job at this whole _denying what she feels for Cereza_ ordeal. 

“Uh-huh,” Jeanne mimics. “That’s not your business.” 

“It seems as it is, as your only friend and sole confidante while your girl was away.” She’s right, and Jeanne hates it. “Now, tell me about her.”

Sighing, Jeanne collects herself and downs a gulp of her favorite liquor for good measure. It isn’t often she talks about what she really feels, and being with Vanessa can be likened to feeling like a crab without its shell. 

“She’s a lovely cohabitant,” Jeanne begins. “We aren’t the people we were before, but that’s fine.” 

Vanessa taps her chin. “So you aren’t entirely sure that she remembers you guys were—how do I put this lightly—in love, way back when?” 

“We weren’t.” Jeanne clips. Cereza was just as confusing then about this whole ordeal as she was now. 

“ _You_ were.” 

Ouch. “If you invited me to your home only to make me feel terrible about my… far from ideal situation with my best friend—”

The Sumerian flesh-eating demon across her stops her with a laugh, the sheer blouse that hung on her very tall frame flowing with how fast she stands to smooth Jeanne’s extremely ruffled feathers. “Jeanne, come on, don’t be like that.” 

Jeanne relents and sits, crossing her arms and on the verge of a pout. Vanessa should be grateful she has one of the most beautiful faces Jeanne has ever seen, otherwise she would have fired a few bullets out of sheer annoyance. “That’s a good girl.” Vanessa tuts. “You know, if you really want to get over her, we can make a few arrangements to work in your favor.” 

“Vanessa, for the last time, I will _not_ sleep with you again.” 

Holding up her hands in defeat, Vanessa continues. “You’re missing out, but you have a bad habit of interrupting me.” She fills Jeanne’s now empty glass. “I was going to say that I can set you up with some friends if you were interested.” 

“No. Of course not. You are being ridiculous.” _Setting-up? J_ eanne scoffed, she will not involve herself in such mortal-like matters. It was something that her colleagues in the past always bothered themselves with, and Jeanne always thought it was absurd.

The lilitu shrugs. “Just a thought. Though I doubt that there would be anyone who can take the place of the girl you’ve been pining for five centuries.” 

Who was Vanessa even going to set her up with? Mortals could be attractive, but they were physically incapable of moving beyond their limited understanding of worlds other than their own. 

“Worry not, Jeanne, I have friends who are not witches but aren’t mortals either.” She reaches out to pat Jeanne’s cheek lightly. “Of course I would only choose the best for you.” 

Jeanne mulls it over; seriously considers it. No one will take Cereza off her mind but a few distractions now that she’s no longer busy wouldn’t hurt. 

“Nothing serious.” stipulates Vanessa, seemingly understanding the machinations of Jeanne’s thoughts.

She rules that she’s too tipsy to make such a decision, and she pats herself on the back because she almost never thinks things through when even slightly inebriated. “I’ll think about it.”

Dressed for bed and having gone through her nightly routines on her own, Jeanne makes her way to Cereza’s room and finds the woman’s soft snores breaking its rhythm, sensing someone entering the room. She was a light sleeper, as compared to Jeanne who can most likely sleep through the Rapture. 

Climbing onto the bed that Jeanne has slept better in than in the past years, she mumbles an apology but Cereza only shakes her head, already slightly awake. “How was your dinner?” 

“She was insufferable.” 

“Sounds like fun.” 

“It was,” says Jeanne, honestly, as nights like this with Vanessa had kept her alive when desperation and desolation were too much. It hasn’t changed. 

“Good. You’ve been working too hard.” She turns to her side, cueing Jeanne to hold her from behind—something that grew from the mere hand-holding—to aid both of them in sleeping without nightmares. 

She’s sure Cereza’s sleeping but then, without thinking, Jeanne (sort of) lies, “I have a date.”

There is no telling sign of what Cereza could possibly feel, except for the small, sleepy, disinterested, “oh, how was it?” But it’s formed around a sleepy yawn. 

Jeanne’s brows furrow in confusion. “What—it hasn’t happened yet, Cereza.” The other woman starts snoring softly.

Nothing. No indication of displeasure, nor delight. Jeanne swallows the unpleasant and confusing fusion of disappointment and relief. It doesn’t come as a surprise to her that she still can’t get a pulse of what Cereza’s feeling. 

This prompts her to pull away momentarily to text Vanessa: _alright. I’ll do it._

Three dots appear before the reply comes. _Sleep with me? Thought you’d never ask x_

Jeanne rolls her eyes. The next message: _Got it, doll. Only the best for you._

-

Cereza, contrary to popular belief, is sweet and thoughtful. Neither of them acknowledges this fact, as Jeanne would be rewarded with a flippant remark and a chin held high with haughtiness. 

This is a major inconvenience and does not help Jeanne’s daunting task of not falling even more in love with her every single day harder than it should be.

It hits like a third sphere lance to her chest when Cereza listens to their playlist, now collaborative as Cereza—ever so technologically savvy—figured it out. It’s an odd mix of pop, garage rock, new wave, and various classical movements, but she loves it. 

It’s difficult, when her body enjoys slotting itself against Cereza’s back, when Cereza sets her feet on Jeanne’s lap for a massage while they’re streaming some shows on their television, when they’re eating together at the table with a meal either she and Cereza (mostly Cereza) whipped up. It’s the hardest and most daunting task when Cereza sleeps, the moonlight casting an ethereal glow, and Jeanne wishes she could run the back of her hand against the softness of her skin. 

Times like these remind Jeanne that while they were incredibly lucky, the world hadn’t treated them well. _If everything hadn’t happened_ , Jeanne thinks bitterly, there would still be a clan that she and Cereza could lead. Maybe if the past centuries hadn’t happened, Jeanne could have told Cereza what she felt all those years ago. Maybe they could have married.

She pulls her hand away, feeling guilty for watching Cereza sleep, and maybe agreeing to that date with a druidess with _red flaming hair_ , as Vanessa described. 

A soft snore pulls from Cereza’s throat, and Jeanne realizes she still doesn’t know what Cereza felt. 

She lies down and tries to sleep when Cereza curls in closer to her side. 

It punctures the space between her ribs, but Jeanne tries her best to find slumber. 

-

Cereza blinks reading the journals that Jeanne had prepared for her students, eyes never leaving the papers as she took a sip of tea from the small coffee shop’s mug. 

“Are you sure you should be giving secondary-level students… tertiary-level material?” She raises an eyebrow at _The Witch Hunts: Misogyny and Chauvinist Responses to Alternative and Female-Centric Knowledge._

Jeanne takes a sip from her espresso—her favorite, she must admit—and sets it down. “The materials selected by the schools discussed history poorly. I seek to remedy this.” She clicks her pen to take down some notes. “I’m infamous for my difficult classes and unlike most teachers, I teach my students how to responsibly criticize the dominant form of knowledge.” 

Cereza chuckles, shakes her head. “You are just as rigorous a teacher as I remember.” 

That pulls Jeanne from her thoughts. “Is that so?”

Nodding, Cereza continues. “I know I learned everything from you, but it wasn’t easy. Your… easily flared temper is barely extinguishable.” A blush crawls up Jeanne’s cheeks. She remembers when her patience ran short with Cereza, but it was because they were so young.

“It’s different now,” she replies meekly, avoiding Cereza’s teasing eyes. “I mean, I still have my moments but it’s significantly better.” It was true. She had taught at Stanford decades ago and was not very popular there. 

When Jeanne hazards a look at Cereza across her, she expects even more teasing, yet she’s met with a look that she can’t decipher. It was like… she was being observed. The corner of her mouth turned upwards slightly. 

She looks away, eyes now on her work before her. She headed to the coffee shop to be productive, not turn into a blushing schoolgirl under Cereza’s watchful gaze. 

“Something on your mind, Cereza?” 

No reply comes for a few minutes that Jeanne finds her rhythm in checking, forgetting and not even feeling Cereza’s still heavy gaze on her. 

Until: “Jeanne. Were we ever lovers?” 

She tears the paper she’s checking in half and nearly knocks over her tiny cup. There are a few moments before she gathers the strength to level with Cereza, with a pathetic “pardon?” 

“Were we ever lovers?” Cereza repeats, patiently and Jeanne inspects her face and sees no malice. Just genuine curiosity and perhaps a little confusion. Perhaps a little lost. 

“Why do you ask?” She says, her heart thundering in her chest. 

Cereza shrugs. “It just occurred to me to ask you now.” 

 _How impulsive_ , thinks Jeanne, her head spinning. That’s always been what Cereza was and it’s endearing as it is infuriating. 

( _“You should be more careful. Why do you always get yourself in scuffles like this? They don’t deserve any attention from you.” Jeanne chides, swiping at the blood dripping from Cereza’s nose. The soft towels would fare delicate injuries like this than the rags they give Cereza no matter how much Jeanne protests._

_Cereza only shrugs and chuckles a bit._

_“You’re too much, did you know that?” She says, not unkindly. She stops to look at Cereza’s steely eyes. “One day you’re going to scare the council until they die.”_

_The other girl puts her hand on Jeanne’s, feather-light, and the feelings that have always been there flaring up to color her cheeks._

_“I have my princess to take care of me.”_

_It was true, Jeanne would walk up to Jubileus for Cereza. Or be there when Cereza punts Jubileus in the face._

_This wouldn’t be the best time to share what she felt so Jeanne swallows the words and saves it for later.)_

Cereza’s voice prompts her out of her surprised stasis. “So?” 

Jeanne gulps. She has been through five hundred years of solitude, she can handle telling the woman she has loved for a long time that they were, in fact, never involved. “No, Cereza. We weren’t.” She thanks Sheba below that It comes off exactly as she wanted it to. Relaxed. Soft. Honest. 

It’s the tone she uses when Cereza has questions about her past. 

She doesn’t elaborate. There wasn’t much to say. She never had a chance to tell her what she felt and now it feels a little bit too late. 

When Cereza senses that Jeanne will not continue, she nods, returns to reading the journal as if she hadn’t just shaken the ground Jeanne was standing on. Jeanne can’t read her face because of the terrifying neutrality. 

An extremely awkward silence befalls them, or so Jeanne thinks. Who knew if Cereza felt the same about the heavy air around them? She focuses on the paper she had torn in accident and curses herself, Cereza, everything. 

“Who wrote this?” Cereza lifts the journal, having finished it. “It’s excellent.” 

“You’re looking at her.” She tilts her chin proudly. It was one of her finer works, under a different pseudonym. Critically acclaimed. It was presented at a conference, decades ago. 

Cereza raises an eyebrow, one that clearly said _I shouldn’t have asked_ , but Jeanne allowed herself to hope, seeing the pride in Cereza’s features. 

“That’s what kept you busy all these years?” 

She had a ridiculous amount of money from bounty work and all the publishing, plus her stints at Ivy Leagues paid her quite well. Jeanne shrugs. “I have five master degrees and three PhDs.” 

Cereza is impressed, but she only rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “Show-off.”

“Always.” 

Just like that, the heavy clouds shrouding their small space are plucked out of existence. 

 

Jeanne tries not to think too much about how Cereza’s arms around her waist as they ride home are a bit looser than usual, but she’s Jeanne, and she does exactly that.

-

 _“She_ **_what_ ** _?”_

Jeanne places some distance between herself and her phone. “Vanessa, if you don’t keep your voice down, I _will_ hang up.” 

_“Sorry but I simply cannot accept that you are mucking around when your girl already asked you.”_

Jeanne inspects her nails before she drinks rosé from a mug. Cereza was out fulfilling her contract, which reminds her she should do so as well. She’s been preoccupied with checking papers to be returned before midterms so her students could study properly. “It seemed like it was just one of those questions she asked about her past.” She swirls her finger on the expensive material of her plush couch. “To assume it was more than that would be foolish.” 

 _“Foolish?”_ Jeanne can _hear_ Vanessa’s palm on her face. “ _Do you even hear yourself right now, Jeanne? If there was someone who was being foolish right now it’s you because you aren’t doing anything about it.”_

She massages her right temple, feeling her temper flare. “What did you expect me to do? Lie? There was and is nothing romantic between us.” She gulps the content of her cup in one go. “Only myself, remember?”

Vanessa sighs, audibly exasperated with Jeanne. “ _So what do you plan to do now?”_

“I don’t know.” She replies, defeated. “Nothing, I suppose. Still go on that date with the druidess.” 

_“Suit yourself, but I’m telling you that’s not nothing.”_

Jeanne wishes she could believe her.

-

She tosses her keys on the counter to see Luka seated on the couch, eating biscuits and drinking some tea while Cereza putters about the kitchen, preparing a drink and some snacks for Jeanne as well. 

“Hey, Jeanne,” Luka greets and jumps to his feet, and even if it’s been months since their introduction and afternoons spent talking about their research, she still sees some semblance of fear in his eyes. _Good._  

“Hello. I read your newest article. It’s very good.” 

Luka grins a boyishly, scratching the back of his head. “It took a lot to get the idea to my superior but she liked it. Thanks to you.” 

Jeanne smiles. She likes the guy, and it’s pretty obvious he had crushes on both she and Cereza, but he never made a move, and Cereza spoke happily about this guy he’s sweet with from a different publication. “If I find any more of my primary sources, I’ll be sure to hand them over to you.” 

Cereza makes her way to greet Jeanne, after setting the tray on their center table. “Afternoon, darling,” she leans in to kiss Jeanne’s cheek as she always does. Luka’s eyes widen, but it’s schooled back to normal when he turns around to inspect their newly acquired paintings which he promptly comments on. “Am I interrupting this academic conference?” 

“Not at all,” Luka says, clearing his throat. “I was just thanking Jeanne for her help with my last article, Bayonetta. You should really start appreciating how much Jeanne contributed to the changes in the way history is taught.”

“You’re the only one in this world who thinks that I don’t appreciate Jeanne for all she does, Cheshire,” Cereza teases. It’s times like this that she’s more Bayonetta than ever, other than when they’re out on missions. “I do, all the time.” 

The oven dings as Jeanne’s mind short-circuits at Cereza’s insinuation. It leaves her and Luka dumbfounded. Cereza’s ability to make people feel that way is impeccable.

“So…” 

Jeanne shakes her head. 

Luka points to Cereza’s direction with his thumb, visibly confused. “I thought…”

Jeanne raised her shoulders. _Sheba, if only she knew what was going on._  

The man nods sagely in understanding. Being Cereza’s only other friend, he would be well-acquainted with Cereza’s very elusive and confusing nature. 

(“You and Cheshire seem like you’re getting along.” Cereza says, smiling, as they remove their makeup in front of Jeanne’s dresser. 

“He’s very smart, for a man.” 

Cereza laughs at that, loud and deep. It echoes in Jeanne’s insides. “That he is.” 

She imagines introducing Vanessa to Cereza, but it might end up with the two of them conspiring against her and embarrass her to death. Yet she smiles at the thought of them laughing, maybe even if it’s at Jeanne’s expense.) 

-

The screams in her head wake her up abruptly, and she only barely catches the scream in her throat before she sits to gather herself.

Jeanne breathes deeply, wiping her forehead that’s been drenched in sweat. 

It’s the same dream again. She swings her legs to the side, careful not to wake Cereza, focusing on calming herself. _It was just a dream,_ she soothed herself. She curls her fingers into her thigh in annoyance, feeling the sharp pain. _Yeah, some fucking dream, alright._

Her sisters, burning. Balder threatening to break her if she didn’t cooperate. The same amount of pain that flashed through her brain when she refused to disclose Cereza’s location. The heartbreak forcing her sword into the gem on Cereza’s watch and putting her inside the box; sealed away indefinitely.

She massages her eye sockets with the heels of her hands, as she always does. It’s as if her subconscious knew exactly which pieces of her memory can be used to torment her.

Cereza is still sound asleep. She needs some air. Jeanne leaves the room for the garage after covering herself, clad in only a tank top and her underwear, with a silk kimono she’d retrieved from her travels. 

Light Killer and Angel Slayer stood side by side in their garage, their headlights coming to life at their owner entering their vicinity. Jeanne shuts them off to turn on the lights and find some rags and polish. 

Her nightmares don’t plague her as much as they used to, but it comes with the bitter realization that her actions were more drastic than she’d imagined. The shame made her feel sick. 

She polishes Angel Slayer’s body first. Perhaps Jeanne excelled in her training and she had succeeded in many parts of her life except the most important one: being the Umbran Elder. She was supposed to protect them, but they had all perished at the hands of men, who feared what they could not understand. Her eyes burn, and the screams of those she was powerless to help seemed fresh. It cuts through her. 

She moves to Light Killer. Then Balder found her, wandering, alone, with all the secrets of the Umbra. They had planned to find her when her powers and her soul were at their weakest. Yet no matter what he did to control her, the strongest part of her consciousness fought to the end and refused to reveal what she knew.

Balder. The near-empty can is crushed like paper in Jeanne’s hands before she tosses it against the cement wall in a flash of sheer anger. It creates a dent in the concrete and the sound echoes loudly. The tears don’t come but Jeanne wishes it would.

The strongest part of her consciousness soothes her. She’s here now. Free. With Cereza. _Like I always wanted,_  she thinks. 

Her fists unclench at the thought of Cereza, beautiful Cereza whom she loved deeply but was so very confusing. Who has been nothing short of tender and kind to her, and Jeanne loved her, enough to spend so much of her life and spirit protecting. 

She risked so much, and having Cereza being the first thing she sees in the morning is all worth it. 

Jeanne picks up the can and tosses it in the bin, feeling slightly guilty about scaring guards who may be doing the night shift.  When she returns, she showers and comes back to bed. 

Settling under the covers, Cereza shifts, turning to look at Jeanne with squinted eyes. 

“Sorry,” whispers Jeanne. “Did I wake you?” 

Cereza shakes her head and moved closer. “Feeling alright?” 

Jeanne doesn’t know how to answer that, so she lies. “Yeah.” Seeing Cereza now, with the light streaming into her room, her mind and heart feel much calmer than they did an hour ago. 

Cereza looks unconvinced, but she closes the distance between them to make her way under Jeanne’s arms, slotting herself into Jeanne’s side. 

 _How could Jeanne not risk everything for her?_ She wraps her arms around Cereza, and the warmth finally nudges her softly towards slumber. 

“You smell like metal polish.” 

Jeanne begins to extract herself, reluctantly, from her comfortable position as the little spoon.

“I didn’t say you should leave.” Cereza chuckles. “Sleep. I’ll be here.” 

Jeanne does exactly that. 

 

( _“Maman made me stay at the cauldrons as punishment.”_

_Cereza picks at a smooth rock for them to skip indefinitely. “For what?”_

_Jeanne doesn’t tell her that it’s because she was seen walking at the courtyards with Cereza. Frankly, she doesn’t care. “Don’t know.”_

_Cereza crinkles her nose, finally looking at her. “So that’s why you smell like werewolves.”_

_She splashes water on her best friend in retaliation.)_

-

The date was, if Jeanne was being honest, quite terrible that when Cereza calls her and says that a Fearless sliced her leg, Jeanne thought she was joking to save her from a bad date. 

She tries to keep the relief from her voice when she picks up but fails miserably. “Cereza.” 

“ _Jeanne, a Fearless sliced my leg.”_

She struggles to smother a laugh and focuses on sounding urgent. “Oh dear, that sounds bad. Do you think you can wait for me? I’ll bring you to the hospital.” 

“ _Sure_.” 

She apologizes, thanks the girl for the dinner after giving her split, and excuses herself to help her roommate. 

Imagine Jeanne’s surprise when she gets home five minutes later, seeing Cereza sitting at the table bleeding out on their floor. She pales, rushing to her side to inspect it. “ _Oh my goodness,_ Cereza!” she yells, “I thought you were joking!” 

Cereza winces when she laughs. “I didn’t want to ruin your date.” 

Jeanne’s blood pressure was way over the top and this woman was driving her insane. “I don’t know where you keep your salves,” Cereza says, “so I couldn’t do it myself.”

Jeanne saves the scolding and the lectures for later before she whispers an incantation to close the wound and stop the bleeding, even internally. 

“I didn’t know that was possible,” Cereza says, in awe. Soot covers her beautiful face and Jeanne wipes it away, helping her up to the bathroom for her nightly bath after taking out angels. Jeanne makes a mental note to herself to teach it to Cereza, and maybe a couple of other lesser-known spells and summons. 

She dresses, removes her makeup, and cleans the blood on the floor with the snap of her fingers. Jeanne helps Cereza limp to their shared bed. “Bad date?” 

“Yes, unbelievably so.” The girl was pretty and smart, but she just… wasn’t cutting it for Jeanne. Besides, she has to catch up on her contract and submit grades, maybe write some more journals. She simply does not have time for superficial activities of mortals such as dating. “The limp will be gone in the morning, don’t worry.” 

“Aren’t you glad I saved you?” teases Cereza. Jeanne rolls her eyes, assisting her onto the bed. 

“Don’t do that again. Goodness, Cereza, you will be the death of me.” 

Cereza laughs. “My, are you _fussing,_ Jeanne?”

“Of course not.” She moves to stand. Maybe she’ll sleep in her room after months of sleeping beside Cereza. “Get some rest.” 

A hand catches her arm. “Stay,” Cereza pleads softly. 

“Cereza, you’re injured.” 

“That shouldn’t stop you from sleeping beside me.” 

Jeanne begs to disagree, but she complies anyway. Saying no to Cereza was simply not something she was good at. 

She maintains her distance, to avoid jostling the still healing wound, save for their feet touching underneath the blankets. 

When Cereza falls asleep, Jeanne moves to take out a piece of paper. She had always been better at articulating her thoughts handwritten, no matter how messy. She writes, on top: _Telling Cereza How I Feel._

Jeanne scribbles _pros,_ and under it: _1) She shares the sentiment; 2) We become more than what we are now; 3) Physical things (negotiable); 4) We will be each other’s companions._ It strikes her that not much will change. 

She scribbles _cons_ on the other side and thinks hard. Nothing comes to mind, except her one fear: 1) _She does not share the sentiment._ Jeanne doesn’t write that it could possibly lead to the end of this lovely arrangement of happier times in this lovely home they’ve made their own. 

Jeanne slips the paper into the drawer of the side table and stares at the ceiling.

She weighs it in her head, spins it obsessively. 

Then Jeanne decides. All of this… for her feelings? 

_Not worth it._

Yet she finds Cereza’s hand under the blankets, careful not to jostle her, and falls into a dreamless sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to cut this fic evenly and make it a tri-chapter fic! The third chapter is in the works, do not fret! :D Jeanne having many degrees is my favorite thing
> 
> Yell at me, I'm @belivets on twitter!


	3. pray i believe it / never let the darkness leave us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cereza doesn’t move her gaze away from the helmet, but her tone warms Jeanne down to her toes, cozy thanks to some nice socks and Cereza’s sweet words. “It was always easy for you to turn a blind eye, but you never did.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 3! Out of 4! Because I have no self-control but I promise that’s my last extension!
> 
> Enjoy :D  

Her phone pings during an insanely boring meeting that has to end promptly else she’d spend a few more hours fulfilling her contract tomorrow morning. _When your hair was short,_  the text from Cereza read, _was summoning more difficult?_

Jeanne tries to remember, considering her presently long hair and comparing it to before. _Not that I remember._

She forgets that Cereza doesn’t reply, after spending the rest of the afternoon until supper chasing out the angels from the Manhattan cemetery. It starts raining, too, and Jeanne casts a spell over her and Light Killer to protect them from the downpour before zooming back home but not without picking up some dessert for them to share after dinner. 

It goes to waste, however, because Jeanne walks into their home, tossing her bike keys on the counter and announcing, “darling, I’m home!”, but the dessert falls to the floor with a splat when Jeanne sees Cereza, with incredibly short hair that framed her face nicely, and Jeanne can’t speak, can’t move, can only just stand there by the kitchen island… 

Cereza tilts her head and smiles, somewhat shyly. “Not too bad?” 

It’s absolutely gorgeous, and Cereza is beautiful—she always has been—and Jeanne wants to say you’re _beautiful, so very much, and I’ve always loved you._  

She tries, so very hard, to say it, yet her pathetic mouth only says, “Not bad at all.” 

Jeanne almost feels bad for perhaps not giving Cereza the validation she may be asking for verbally, but the key lime cake that lays flat by her feet speaks volumes. 

-

“Dr. D’Arc?”

Jeanne doesn’t look up her laptop as she completes her part of the article that she and Luka decided to write together a few weeks ago. She was a bit behind her self-imposed deadline, and she was not about to entertain a distraction to her solitary lunchtime. “Yes?” 

“Your girlfriend is here.” 

That makes Jeanne look at the secretary, whom she had a very icy relationship with. He wasn’t as helpful to her as he was to other faculty. “Excuse me?” 

He looks bored. “Your girlfriend is here. She’s waiting at the reception.” 

Jeanne raises an eyebrow. “Well? Let her in.” 

He turns away with a small “ _sure”_ under his breath, before Jeanne can even think to correct him that Cereza is absolutely not her girlfriend. God, mortals really had terrible and premature names for their significant others. 

Cereza, dressed in a lovely blue sweater Jeanne bought for her and some nicely tailored slacks, saunters to her with what Jeanne recognizes is her lunch, neatly wrapped with a silk handkerchief the way Cereza always did. 

“I know that you might be spending these breaks for your other work,” Cereza says as greeting, and Jeanne looks up at her only to let her gaze fall the meal that Jeanne forgot at home. “But you need these.” 

It had escaped Jeanne to pick up the lunch that Cereza prepares for her every morning, as she rushed to her first class at 8. She is slightly embarrassed that Cereza had to bring it all the way to school for her. 

“You didn’t have to,” Jeanne says, taking it anyway, and brushing her hand along Cereza’s. 

Her best friend rolls her eyes. “And let you starve? Please.” Jeanne watches her, watches the flippant way she responds, yet the genuine concern seeps in almost always right after. “You have to eat, Jeanne.” 

She knows that her abysmal eating schedule had only been regularized recently, thanks to Cereza’s delicious cooking as Jeanne had always been too tired to do so, and it worries Cereza to no end among her other less ideal habits. 

Jeanne gives her a reassuring smile. “I will, worry not. I’m almost through with this wretched journal.” 

Cereza raises a brow, but she smiles in return, and Jeanne’s once cold heart warms the slightest. “Wretched? You love writing all of those.” 

She was right. Jeanne loved it. 

(Getting it peer-reviewed, however, was an entirely different story. On the first night, Jeanne had to tell Cereza about the hole in the drywall that was born out of a second reviewer.) 

And the way Cereza looked at her now, in this light, in her casual wear and her new haircut… Jeanne looks away, catching herself staring. It’s been occurring quite often. 

The bell rings before Jeanne can even shoo Cereza away to run errands and go be a nun, or something, anything except look at Jeanne with so much affection. 

“That’s my cue to leave,” she says, stepping away, and the magic subsides slightly. “See you back home. Don’t forget to pay the bills.” 

She leans down and kisses Jeanne’s cheek goodbye, Jeanne nodding a yes to her request, then saunters off.

Jeanne watches her as she walks away, her journal forgotten when Mrs. Carter says: “you two are cute.” 

Jeanne sighs. “We’re not together.” 

Mrs. Carter returns to what she’s doing, but not without a coy, “I know.” 

-

There’s a large crash outside and Jeanne gets her gun from under the bed and makes her way towards the living room in just her underwear, walking to where the noise is at its loudest. 

Where she expects to find a first sphere entity, she sees Cereza sprawled on top of the rug, obviously too inebriated to find her way to the room. 

Jeanne lowers her gun with a laugh. The woman she was in love with is face down on the floor, with her lovely dark green dress exposing her ass and some really nice underwear that they bought together. 

(Jeanne tries not to think of the person Cereza would be wearing it for.) 

She pops the safety on and places it on their center table before pulling Cereza up like a ragdoll and into her arms. 

 _How the tables turned._ She hasn’t been out in some time thanks to the requirements piling up, so Cereza had been the one to go out to town quite often. “Come on, up you go, darling.” She’s slightly heavier than Jeanne expected. “Goodness, Cereza, what have you been eating?” She teases, yet it is futile as Cereza has effectively passed out. 

When she strips Cereza of her clothing and dresses her in some clean clothes, Jeanne slides a pail beside the left side of the bed just in case Cereza needed to hurl then returns to her spot on the bed. 

Like clockwork, Cereza sidles up to her side, under her arm, with her head nestled comfortably on Jeanne’s shoulder. 

She chuckles, hand finding the small of Cereza’s back. She smells like fruity drinks and Jeanne wants to kiss her. “Fun night?” 

To her surprise, Cereza nods, but only barely. 

She tightens her hold around her. “I’m glad.” 

-

They’re cleaning out the storage room on a cool day since they’re both free, and the task requires two people. Jeanne ties her long hair, while Cereza wears a headband to keep the hair out of her face, as they sort out Jeanne’s items. 

While Jeanne stacked some papers for recycling, Cereza calls her attention. “What’s this?” 

Jeanne turns to see her holding a white helmet with pointed lynx ears. “Just something I did a while back. I’ve been too preoccupied,” is all she says, feeling some sort of embarrassment crawl to the back of her neck for a reason she can’t exactly name. 

Cereza inspects it. “What exactly did you do? Race?” 

Oh, how she wished it was as cool as that. 

“I’m not going to tell you,” Jeanne says, turning away and shaking her head. “So nosy.” 

She can _feel_ Cereza’s pout from where she stands. “Why not? Did you do children’s birthday parties or something?”

“Don't be ridiculous.” 

“Professional skydiver?” 

“No.” 

“Professional wrestler?” 

“No! I was a vigilante crime fighter around the area!” 

Cereza smiles, coyly, as if she had been expecting that answer. Her eyes shine, and Jeanne doesn’t understand it, but she looks happy. “Really?” 

Well, it was out in the open now. “The PD around here was targeting innocent people, and I wanted to change that,” Jeanne explains, “the recent head cracked down on it, though, that’s why I’m currently inactive.” 

Cereza looks at Jeanne, then the helmet, with so much fondness. “You’ve always been like that.”

“Like what?” 

“Like you always had to defend the little guy, because you knew it was right.” Cereza doesn’t move her gaze away from the helmet, but her tone warms Jeanne down to her toes, cozy thanks to some nice socks and Cereza’s sweet words. “It was always easy for you to turn a blind eye, but you never did.” 

Jeanne wants to say something, anything remotely flippant or coy or something to deflect the sincerity of Cereza’s words yet she finds that she’s incapable of doing so. Not now, not when had spent so much of her life doing exactly as Cereza said, perhaps without her even noticing. 

( _The courtyard is strangely populated today, with some loud and unruly chanting from a crowd that surrounds a skirmish that’s obscured from her view, but Jeanne knows that sound from anywhere._

_She sees Cereza, currently pinned to the ground by one of the girls whose name Jeanne recalls as Danae. There is no fight in Cereza; she had reasoned that it would look terrible if she did, but Jeanne had not questioned it despite being deeply bothered by the statement._

_Jeanne steps in to break the fight at once. “What’s the meaning of this?”_

_That stops Danae from landing another punch, for Sheba-knows-what now. “Princess!” She stands, getting off. Many of the audience dispersed, terrified of Jeanne. “We were just—”_

_Jeanne lands an uppercut that connects with her jaw, making an ungodly sound of a crack of bones. Danae lay, unconscious, as Jeanne helps Cereza up._

_“If I see anyone making Cereza’s life or anyone else’s purely because you personally do not deem them worthy of a member of this clan, you will answer to me and you will regret it.” )_

“You remember?” 

“Partially. Enough for this,” she holds up the Cutie J helmet, “to make sense.” 

Jeanne picks at a loose thread on her sweater. “I don't tolerate intolerance.” 

Her senses are filled with Cereza’s perfume, nothing new, but Jeanne adores how sweet it is and how the bottom note envelops her with a musky floral scent that was always pleasant. 

Cereza leans her head on Jeanne’s shoulders, very close and very warm, still holding the Cutie J helmet. It’s nothing new from how they sleep at night, yet heat makes its way to Jeanne’s cheeks, either way. 

“Thank you,” is all Cereza says. Jeanne knows immediately that she means all the times she protected her, all the times that Jeanne had put Cereza first before many other things. “I would do the same for you.” 

Jeanne feels emotions thicken the lining of her throat, and she clears it before it betrays her. 

However, she touches the side of Cereza’s face, quite easily considering the significant lack of hair blocking her way. Cereza leans into the touch. “I know.”

-

“Well, I certainly thought you would at _least_ sleep together.” 

Jeanne huffs, pours herself another glass. Vanessa’s ego was severely wounded at the thought of Jeanne and the druidess—aptly named Sophie—did not hit it off despite her ‘two hundred percent infallible matchmaking skills’. “You certainly thought wrong.” 

“What happened!” Vanessa exclaims. “She was pretty, smart, and hot.” 

 _Not Cereza_ , Jeanne’s adds belatedly. 

“Those used to be your only conditions, Jeanne,” says the lilitu, though now it’s done with a teasing lilt that Jeanne can only shrug in response. Jeanne did have many trysts in the past, and they were often attractive women who looked the same they were essentially faceless. “What happened?” 

When Jeanne doesn’t reply, only sits on Vanessa’s plush chair with her arms crossed like a petulant child, Vanessa nods slowly in understanding. “Ah, your girl back home.” 

It was easier to rendezvous with women she barely cared about when Cereza was sealed at the bottom of the lake, and the intensity of her love and attachment to her was replaced with hatred by Balder. 

Now she’s here, living their lives perhaps not in the way she always wanted but they’re together, inseparable, and Jeanne loves her more every day but can never find the courage to be vulnerable enough to tell her. 

She turns her head and lifts her chin. “You are terrible at this matchmaking thing, Vanessa. Accept it.” 

Vanessa, a 2000-year-old lilitu, sticks out her tongue at Jeanne and tosses a crumpled paper at her accurately. “At least I’m trying to get you out of your predicament. You don’t seem to be doing anything to help yourself.” 

Jeanne frowns at her. “What am I to do? Just leave her? She’s my companion. We’re the two lone Umbra witches left on this realm.” 

Vanessa stands to bend and knock a fist on Jeanne’s forehead, which she swats away too late. “Hello? Anyone there? That isn’t the only way to solve this.” She sits beside Jeanne, takes a sip of the red liquid from her glass. “Have you considered—this might sound insane to you—telling her what you feel? I feel like a broken record saying this _over and over again._ ”

“Yes, and the answer is that I won’t. It’s too much.” It really was. The pros and cons list sits quietly in her drawer, where she last left it. She still hasn’t done any concrete steps to solve this problem. _Maybe it’s because you don’t want to,_ a voice in her head pipes up and she surprises herself that she doesn’t completely shut it down, yet rolls it around in her head thinking about what it could possibly imply. 

Is she starting to hope that Cereza returns her feelings? Jeanne honestly doesn’t know anymore. 

Vanessa’s head lolls between her hands. Jeanne also feels like she’s had enough of this conversation. “Jeanne, I swear, you are arguably the brightest witch of your kind but you are seriously a dolt for someone who spends so much time with yourself in your head.” 

Jeanne squints her eyes at her. “What do you mean.” 

“All I’m saying is that you are seriously quite dumb for someone who thinks a lot. I’m saying that you think too much but you have terrible conclusions that don’t make sense even to you.”

“They make perfect sense to me,” she lies and crosses her arms in response. It was true and she hated to hear it that she feels something fume inside her. “If I made terrible conclusions, why would I have all the things I’ve ever written?” 

Vanessa looks at her incredulously. “Do you hear yourself? Your girl isn’t a research topic. She’s a person and you love her.” 

She points at Jeanne’s forehead, “maybe use a little less of this,” then points at Jeanne’s stomach, “and a little more of this.” 

Puzzled by the direction her friend pointed at, Jeanne makes a face at her, visibly confused and annoyed. “That’s not my heart.” 

Vanessa stares at her like she can’t believe she’s real, but she shakes out of it quickly. “I’m pointing to your gut, Jeanne.” 

Oh. 

“What does your gut feel say?”

Jeanne’s gut points to hope, and that this can be something more, and it always has. Her head just always had to take over. Was it because of all the years of strategically planning every move to survive? Was it spending recent years compromised? 

Her gut points to hope, and her silence tells Vanessa so.

“You know what to do,” she says, leaning back to drink from her glass. “Just let yourself gather the courage to do it.” 

-

The Lady Gaga show was everything that Jeanne had expected and nothing like it at all, and Cereza seemed like she was having the time of her life. The woman knew how to put on a show, and seeing Cereza laugh and sing along made fondness take over her. 

When _Americano_ comes on, and she sings about running away together to the mountains, Jeanne wills herself to take Cereza’s hand. No one will see nor care in this crowd, but remembering that significant moment all those years ago, despite being possessed by Balder, the strongest part of her mind wished deeply to live the life she wanted with Cereza, as legal partners, recognized by the state. 

Cereza looks back at her, genuinely surprised about Jeanne initiating touch, yet she smiles so sweetly that it drowns out the noise as if they’re the only two people there and on this realm, and _oh,_ how Jeanne would do anything and everything for her. 

-

 _See you at the club_ , texts Cereza, _had an emergency near Rodin’s._

 _Will you be ok?_ Jeanne replies. Honestly, she can have a night in and she’d be happy, but Cereza suggested they go out to town and have a bit of fun dancing since it’s the semestral break and Jeanne has been working herself to the bone.

_Yes :) go get yourself a pregame. I know you want it._

Jeanne pockets her phone with a chuckle. Cereza knew her too well, she thinks, and heads to the bar. 

She’s three drinks in when someone sidles up to her, a safe distance away, but Jeanne knows they have intentions from the way they ordered drinks ‘for the lovely lady right here’. She looks to the new presence and is greeted by a tall woman, nearly as tall as she, dressed smartly in a crisp light blue button-down and tailored slacks. Her curly hair is tied neatly at the back, and she’s… attractive and giving Jeanne the eyes _._  

“I hope you don’t mind I bought you a drink.” 

Jeanne pulls her gaze away. “I’m perfectly fine buying my own.” 

That earns her a chuckle. “I’m perfectly aware of that. But that greasy dude over there has been eyeing you the entire time you were here.” 

True enough, there _was_ someone looking at her and Jeanne rolls her eyes. She could have him fed to an infernal if she felt like it. 

“Thanks, I suppose,” Jeanne says quietly, sparing her a smile. “I can defend myself, but it’s appreciated.” 

“Just being a decent person. I’m Beth.” 

“Jeanne.” 

They shake hands briefly. “Waiting for someone?” 

Jeanne nods. She doesn’t really want to get into the details of the travesty of her and Cereza’s current status. Whatever it was. 

“Alright. I’ll stay with you until they join you.” 

Beth does exactly that, and Jeanne actually… has a fun time talking to her. She’s not exactly Jeanne’s type, but it’s always great getting to know women who liked women, without potential attraction. Beth is a lawyer, and she’s actually out and about to celebrate passing the bar, where she and her other friends are hanging out at. 

Jeanne was in the middle of talking about her work when one arm circles around her shoulders, and she knows it’s Cereza from the feel of her skin and her perfume. 

“Terribly sorry I’m late, but there were some third spheres that wanted to tag along to party tonight,” Cereza jokes and presses a kiss to Jeanne’s cheek. She looks lovely as ever, in a sleek evening pantsuit. Her eyes make their way to Beth, who is smiling at Jeanne as if she knew something she didn’t as if she didn’t just meet her fifteen minutes ago. “Who’s our friend?” 

“This is Beth. She just bought me a drink to keep sleazy guys off me while you were away to restore balance,” Jeanne quips. “Beth, this is Cereza.” 

“Lovely to meet you,” is all Cereza says, her words betraying her icy tone and gaze which, surprisingly, does nothing to faze Beth. Jeanne supposes moments at the courtroom would harden her.

“Likewise. Listen, my friends are probably looking for me, but you ladies enjoy your night. I’ll see you around.” Beth says, already walking backward towards a noisy group. 

“Congratulations, Attorney!” Jeanne calls out, exploiting the situation to maybe at least catch a glimpse of what Cereza was truly feeling. 

Unfortu-fucking-nately, it’s darker now in the club and Jeanne never got to see. But Cereza’s arm around her waist is tighter, and she never leaves her side, not especially when Jeanne is already _really_ tipsy. On the dance floor, Cereza never takes her eyes off of her and it feels so hot, too hot, and Jeanne - never one to resist her attention despite never really showing it - eats it all up. 

A couple more drinks do her in, and the last thing she remembers is the slight heartache when the cab driver asks how long they’ve been married, and Cereza - uncharacteristically so - corrects, “ah, we’re not married.” Truthfully. Honestly. It rings through her despite her senses making it feel as if she was inside a fishbowl. 

Why did Jeanne hate it so much? It was the truth. 

 _Perhaps,_ Jeanne thinks, _that was why._

She doesn’t have time to dwell on it before she passes out completely, head nestled comfortably on Cereza’s shoulder.

(That night, Cereza exclusively sticks to her side of the bed and it’s Jeanne who crosses the bed’s middle to find Cereza’s body, to embrace as she sleeps in a drunken stupor.) 

-

“How goes the finals checking? You’re almost done.” Cereza sets the cup of tea on the table, but not without a coaster. Jeanne had remembered the horror plastered on her face when Jeanne didn’t place her glasses on coasters, on their wooden tables. 

“Halfway through,” Jeanne agonizes. “Some of these are so bad I feel terrible that I’m not doing my best, but I know I did my part. It’s abysmal.” 

“That’s on them.” Cereza perches on the couch nearby, opening her book. “If it frustrates you endlessly, why don’t you teach university? Postgraduate? If there’s anyone in this world more qualified, it’s you.” 

Jeanne massages her eyes, feeling strained. “Well, if I don’t teach these kids, who will?” She catches a glimpse of Cereza looking at her _that way_ , the look that Jeanne can never decipher. It makes her feel warm, and fuzzy, completely foreign feelings to her. 

Yet, day by day, it becomes less foreign - more familiar - and Jeanne doesn’t mind. 

She rests her head on her arms. 

“Wake you up in ten minutes?” 

“Please.” 

She takes the opportunity to turn her head to watch Cereza, humming contentedly, reading a book with a tall glass of white wine rested on the desk beside her (with a coaster, of course).

How Jeanne had wanted this so much. How she has it, right now, at this moment. How she survived all those years of desolation for this quiet moment where she feels the same contentment that Cereza does. 

She doesn’t know the exact moment she falls asleep, but when Jeanne wakes, it’s an hour later and there’s a blanket around her shoulders, and a still-warm and most likely charmed hot tea beside her. 

_(The incessant pebbles on glass are grating on Jeanne’s nerves, and when she swings her windows open, a small one hits her square in the forehead sharply, not enough to break the skin but enough to hurt._

_“What in Sheba’s name are you doing, Cereza?!”_

_“I apologize!” Cereza says, laughing at the already reddening spot on Jeanne’s forehead. “Let me up.”_

_“Why would I do that? You are clearly staging an attempt on my life!”_

_When Cereza pouts, Jeanne only rolls her eyes and lets down the rope that they always use when they sneak around. Cereza had already started to grow into their gangly limbs and she scaled up the wall of the princess’s bedchamber quickly._

_She held a basket in her hand, which she offers to Jeanne. “I went out to town to get you your favorites because I knew you would be too busy with Umbran Law examinations so…” Jeanne peers into the basket and it held some goat cheese, steamed mushrooms, and pomegranates._

_If Cereza kept this up, then the massive infatuation that had always been there before she even understood what that could mean will turn into a love that will be unparalleled._

_Before Cereza can say anything else, Jeanne takes her into a tight embrace.)_

-

Sweat beads down her forehead and she feels cold all over when she bolts up, catching the scream right before it escapes her. Jeanne holds her head, breathing deeply, after a horrible nightmare that only ever plagues her once in a while - which she considers a win. 

It was the same, and Jeanne was so, so tired. The hand holding her head curls into a fist, her short nails digging into her palms. 

Beside her, the bed dips so slightly and the sheets shift. She doesn’t need to see in the darkness to know Cereza is awake and watching her. 

“Did I wake you?” Jeanne says, so quietly, that she might as well have said it to no one. 

But Cereza hears her, anyway. “A bit, but I’ll live,” she teases lightly. “Come back.” To bed. To her. Jeanne obliges, tucking herself under Cereza’s arms - safe, warm. It grounds her, and it feels as if everything that has been haunting her is kept at bay and the noises are silenced. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” says Cereza, gently, with her fingers untangling Jeanne’s long hair. 

It’s Jeanne’s first instinct to shake her head stubbornly. It hadn’t been wise to show weakness at any point of her life as the heiress, as the elder, as Balder’s pawn, and it has gotten Jeanne out of the worst of situations and has let her be here, at this moment. 

But at what cost? She lies awake when the dreams plague her. If she had dwelled too much on her thoughts, it would drive her mad, quite literally. 

She’s tired. So, _so tired._  

So Jeanne says: “Just everything I did wrong, all these years.” She mumbles it into Cereza’s chest, but again, Cereza hears it all the same. It takes a gargantuan effort to come out with it, but when it’s out, it comes out with a finality that has been spinning around in Jeanne’s head. “I’m a monster and I’m afraid I can never atone for all of those.” 

She hadn’t cried, not in a long time. Not when her mothers died, not when she had to seal Cereza into a box, not when her despair had given her to Balder. Yet now, in the privacy of her bedroom, she feels so raw and vulnerable and finds that the corners of her eyes leak uncontrollably on Cereza’s sleep shirt. It is another foreign feeling, unpleasant this time, yet Cereza tightens her hold on her. 

It spills out of Jeanne, all the years she had placed another brick on a towering wall that no one except Cereza can scale, and Cereza lets it. 

It hurts so _much_ , but she lets herself be held. 

She purges it out of her system, and when Jeanne is done, Cereza still embraces her. It’s a bit damp and uncomfortable, and Jeanne feels embarrassed at the burst of a mix of emotions that she has never paid attention to or found value in acknowledging.

They are silent for so many moments that Jeanne thinks Cereza may have fallen asleep.

Yet she isn’t. She rolls them over, holds Jeanne’s face with her hands, rough from all the fighting. The moonlight paints her face marvelously and Jeanne, even with her puffy eyes, Jeanne can’t look away. 

“Is that why you do all these things? To atone?” 

Jeanne nods. Fresh tears roll down her temples.

Cereza wipes them away, reverently. “I don’t suppose you’ll hear it, but I completely disagree. Remember when we talked about Cutie J? That has always been you, even before all of this.” She tucks some of Jeanne’s hair behind her ear. “You did everything you could to protect everyone. You protected me and went off alone - like a bullheaded idiot, I might add - and made it out alive. How did Balder never know where I was?” 

Jeanne finds the strength to hold the hand Cereza had on her face. “I never told him.” 

“Meaning you protected me, even if he had his hold on you. Then you came to save me.” Cereza continues, giving her a small smile. “You are _not_ the monster here, Jeanne. Very, very far from it. I need you to know that.” 

“My dearest, my Umbran Elder, my hero… the burden you carry is so, _so_ heavy,” Cereza whispers, swiping at Jeanne’s damp cheeks. She presses their foreheads together, faces so close they were breathing the same air. “But you needn’t carry it alone. Not anymore.” 

It might never go away, all this pain, but Cereza is there, offering to help you carry the burden of all these hundreds of years. Jeanne fought for this, for Cereza to hold her and wipe her tears, away from the world and the ghost of the world she once knew and all that they expected from her. 

As they drift off, with their faces so close and their foreheads together, Jeanne realizes that she’s tired, but not in the same way she was tired of fighting, of fighting off the nightmares but fighting something that was obviously good for her. 

Jeanne kisses Cereza’s forehead and falls asleep easily. 

-

They don’t talk about that night, but Jeanne feels lighter than she had her entire life. She asks Cereza out for a walk at the park, on the first snow of the year, and the first snow of them living together. 

Winter was her favorite season, and her favorite Umbran holidays fell in the months with snow. She used to never celebrate them, having been alone. 

“Don’t think we’ll see our favorite duck out today?” Cereza pipes in, thoughtfully. She looks lovely in her winter outfit and is positively glowing. 

But now, Jeanne wasn’t alone. “Possibly. It’s not one that migrates to the south when it’s winter.” 

They walk along the pond, and Jeanne surprises herself by reaching out to take Cereza’s hand, who looks at her with the same surprise whenever Jeanne does so. She raises a perfectly maintained brow but lifts a smile that Jeanne is so very gone for. 

 _I love you, sublimely,_ Jeanne wants to say, and she almost does, with the open way Cereza looks at her, one that has been happening since they moved in together. 

And yet she finds that the courage that she mustered to face Jubileus escapes her. The world goes on, should she postpone the words that she fears to say. 

“Shall we get coffee?” is what comes out of Jeanne’s mouth. 

The smile that Cereza gives her, so patient and kind, is enough to calm the myriad of emotions roiling inside her. 

“Just a few more pictures of the ducks and we can go.” 

Jeanne doesn’t let go of Cereza’s hand, one that’s tucked in with hers inside the pocket of her coat. 

 _Baby steps._  

But she’s getting there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m @belivets on twitter and darksabers on tumblr if you want to talk abt bayo and other stuff !


	4. i will save you every time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Then stay.” 
> 
> It’s a challenge, it’s a request.
> 
> Five hundred years ago, it had been Jeanne who challenged her. Cereza hadn’t backed down, and Jeanne isn’t about to do so, now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They are so dumb, please help them... 
> 
> Extended to 5 chapters. I will regret this but also... I don't? 
> 
> Playlists for all of you, for being patient! [1](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2JKFo9tBrZbiITroKBddll?si=rXQB2Gc9QM2avHMJgkRobg) \+ [2](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4qebU39EFSXfacFz2tBezS?si=Mc87XV5SRGiPfTHI4vZsZA)

Jeanne rolls in and waits out on the curb of the church, and being there simply felt… wrong. Churches always felt repulsive, and simply existing near it felt so unsettling. 

Clasping her bike jacket around her, tan and synthetic fur making it warmer, she wishes Cereza would hurry the fuck up. Despite the snow, it wasn’t cold, but the light energy coming off the monastery felt like it was slithering into her clothes and she hated it. 

How Cereza survives that kind of environment must be credited to her part-Lumen nature. 

Setting foot inside is unthinkable for Jeanne, so her midday visits and picking up Cereza always had her maintaining a safe distance.  

“Bye, girls!” Cereza says to the pair of nuns with her, and Jeanne hazards a look to see Cereza no longer in the nun’s habit and is instead dressed down in her modest slacks, sweater, and coat. 

Jeanne lets out a sigh of relief. She sits astride _Angel Slayer_ , crossing her arms after she starts the engine.

“You can come in, you know,” Cereza teases, taking the coffee from Jeanne’s hands to sip. She makes a face. “You stand out here like you’re my suitor. People will talk.” 

Jeanne rolls her eyes. Obviously, she can’t. Obviously, she _is_ Cereza’s suitor, despite this being unspoken. Obviously, neither of them care if anyone talks.

When Jeanne opens her mouth to shoot a retort, Cereza follows suit, wraps her hands around Jeanne’s waist tightly, in a back hug that presses her entire torso against Jeanne’s back. “You can’t complain I’m late, that would be rich coming from you.” She teases, and Jeanne, completely speechless, can only rev the engine loud enough to speed down the street, hoping that maybe breaking the sound barrier will hide how her heart thundered in her chest at that moment.

-

“Honestly, it makes so much sense you would wear these,” she tells Cereza, as they inspect the wardrobe they’re clearing out, back in Cereza’s old flat. They visit, readying it for selling since there was no use for it anyway. 

Cereza had left behind most of her outfits throughout the years, only bringing her favorites and rather timeless pieces when she moved in. She had replenished what she left behind with her disposable income from her bounty hunter work and clearly not her day job as a nun. 

Mesh, lace, both colorful and dark, line the cabinet. It makes so much sense Jeanne can’t stop looking at it. 

“It’s not your Prince-esque jumpsuits and trousers,” Cereza says and Jeanne hears the slight fluster in her voice. “But it got me by the eighties. I took a lot of my style from the underground vogue clubs.” 

“I’m jealous,” Jeanne chuckles softly. She had only enjoyed one night at those clubs, with the loveliest people, before Balder had taken the reins. The wistful anger that rises in her throat subsides when Cereza takes out a coat with ridiculous shoulder pads giving it shape. “You must have met them at a crucial point in their lives.” 

“I did,” Cereza says, simply, and smiling. “Goodness, I do have a lot of these, don’t I?” 

“You can give them away. There are a lot of other people who can use them.” 

Cereza nods then closes the boxes. “I don’t know why I spend so much on something as frivolous as clothing when we’re always in our uniforms.” She taps her chin thoughtfully, realizing something. “I suppose you have more opportunities to dress. And I notice you like fighting with your red jumpsuits. Why?” 

Her hands cease its movement in folding some of the clothes. 

( _“Shh, it’s alright, Jeanne,” Cereza whispers, holding Jeanne tighter. She shakes and feels pathetic at her reaction to summoning for the first time, with the tight bodice made from her hair leaves her almost naked._

_She knew it was going to happen, seen it a thousand times before, and yet…_

_Umbran princess, heir to the throne, hates summoning because she is uncomfortable with letting people see her body._

_How pathetic._

_Despite her own harsh admonishments, she feels a foreign feeling of comfort wash over her, one not caused by Cereza, but by no other than Madama Styx._

_“Will your maman let you wear your red uniform over it?” Her best friend adds, eager to help, and if Jeanne was ever confused about her feelings for Cereza, she’s definitely sure now._

_“I don’t know. Most likely.” She moves closer, unused to being the first to initiate physical contact but she needs it right now and Cereza is more than happy to offer it to her. Being with her is enough and the shakiness and nausea she feels subsides._

_Cereza hadn’t had to summon yet, with the forging of contract fast approaching, but with the way she had grown into herself - much to Jeanne’s frustration - it seems that this part of summoning wouldn’t be much of a problem._

_She’d enjoy it, even, and Jeanne fights the blush that crawls up her face._

_They’re so close to each other that Cereza’s cheek is pressed comfortably to Jeanne’s head. “Perhaps when we’re older, you can change things about our heritage that hurt us.”_

_She’s talking about the clothing, but she’s also talking about something else entirely: the unjust structure of hierarchy, laws towards acceptance. Jeanne catches it at once, even if Cereza doesn’t say it._

_Jeanne nods, fiercely. “I will.”)_

“I’m not exactly… comfortable with that part of the summoning process,” explains Jeanne, not meeting Cereza’s eyes. She can feel the heaviness of Cereza’s curious gaze. “I know you don’t mind, but I do, albeit for myself.” 

Sometimes it’s unavoidable that her mortal clothes can’t handle extreme conditions that her body can, and when the fate of the world topples between your fingertips, nudity is the least of her worries. 

Yet when it’s avoidable, she does what she can. 

She dares to meet Cereza’s eyes, uncharacteristic fear, and discomfort, but it feels rather stupid because she’s greeted with understanding and compassion that Jeanne feels slightly terrible for doubting Cereza’s fondness for her - friendly or no - despite the gaps in her memory. 

“That’s understandable,” she says, sidling closer to bump their hips together, intimately. “I bet Styx doesn’t mind. You can summon the depths of inferno better than any other witch can, traditions be damned.” 

Her heart squeezes in her chest, wants to tell her she loves her, but she kisses Cereza’s cheek and continues packing, _traditions be damned_ echoing within her headspace. 

-

With winter break still ongoing, they spend their mornings having breakfast in bed and watching home design shows, which had been a routine that started when Cereza started paying for their on-demand streaming services. 

Jeanne finds it hilarious, actually, how shows that require their attention plays absetly in the background while documentaries, lifestyle shows they actually pay attention to.

“I think the drapes can be a darker shade of blue, no?” Cereza says, thoughtfully, as she spreads cheese that Luka had brought from an assignment in Switzerland. 

Jeanne spares it a glance and shakes her head. “I think burgundy is just fine.” 

“Jeanne. This my room.” 

She… was very right. She hasn’t slept in her own room in almost a year, but Jeanne refuses to lose an argument.

“And? This was my house first.” 

Cereza concedes with a roll of her eyes, refusing to argue any longer, but Jeanne knows she’s replacing the drapes quite soon enough.

“I mean,” she amends, “it’s your house as well. You can do whatever you please with your room.” This is as close as she can get to an apology, especially for something so minor, but this truly was Cereza’s home as much as Jeanne’s. 

The last thing Jeanne wants is to make Cereza feel like she was unwelcome. 

Cereza reaches over, covering her hand with hers as if to tell her _I know what you mean, you’re fine_. Her words, however— 

“I know you’re only here in this bed because you don’t want to clean your room.”

Jeanne sets down the newspaper. “Absolutely not.”

“You absolutely are.”

“Not.”

“You are.”

“Not.”

Cereza turns to sip from her tea. “Why do you sleep here then? For me?” 

Crossing her arms, Jeanne juts her chin, finally knowing how to play the game Cereza loves to rope her into. “Yes. And so?”

That certainly takes her best friend by surprise, and it’s evident in the way a redness dusts her cheeks as she raises a brow. “Then stay.” 

It’s a challenge, it’s a request.

Five hundred years ago, it had been Jeanne who challenged her. Cereza didn’t back down, and she isn’t about to do so, now. 

So Jeanne does as she’s asked.

-

“D’Arc,” a familiar voice calls out from the other end of the aisle and Jeanne lets out a groan when she realizes who it is that’s going to interrupt her very meticulous grocery routine, which Cereza has integrated into with very well. 

“Vanessa,” greets Jeanne, turning but keeping the box of quinoa behind her back because she knows that if Vanessa sees it, she’ll never hear the end of it from her. 

Vanessa can say anything else, Jeanne curses her absolute lack of luck because: “Jeanne?” Cereza calls out. 

The dangerous glint in Vanessa’s eyes terrifies her in a way that facing Jubileus didn’t, as Cereza approaches them with their tea biscuits and some glass cleaner for their windows. 

The poorly masked annoyance that graces Jeanne’s face is enough to Cereza who the woman in front of them is. “You must be Vanessa,” she says, not unkindly, with the same twinkle in her eyes. “Lovely to put a face to the name.” 

She had feared that, upon meeting, they will use their individual knowledge and collaborate to push Jeanne’s buttons. Something about the similar gleam in their eyes confirms the sinking feeling of worry in Jeanne’s gut. 

Vanessa takes Cereza’s hand to shake it. “Likewise. I see why Jeanne was so afraid to introduce such a beautiful woman like you to me. If I didn’t care about her, I’d steal you for myself.” 

Cereza, the nerve, looks at Jeanne with the _Bayonetta_ eyes that Jeanne is still getting used to. “I’d say the same. Jeanne, you had your reasons, didn’t you?” 

Having had enough of this teasing, she crosses her arms, the quinoa be damned. “It was exactly for this particular reason I didn’t do it,” Jeanne pinches the bridge of her nose, her temper flaring dangerously and creating an uncomfortable mix with the jealousy she won’t ever admit to feeling. “If both of you don’t stop right now, you will both be witch twisted into my summon void never to be let out.” 

They don’t stop despite Jeanne’s warning and at the end of it, they’ve planned a dinner party next month and Jeanne’s temper threshold is off the charts. All the blood in her body must have rushed to her head. 

“If you don’t do anything about this soon, your girl is mine,” Vanessa says, in jest, but in this livid state, she doesn’t know or doesn’t care if it’s in jest. She knows the effect of Vanessa’s sex appeal on women, and she’s not about to let it work on Cereza. 

“If she pulls something like that again, I am canceling our dinner party,” she grumbles, placing the thankfully unnoticed box of quinoa into the shopping cart. 

Cereza sidles up next to her, linking their arms and kissing Jeanne’s cheek. “Easy, girl. It’s cute when your buttons are pushed.” she chuckles, pressing a finger into Jeanne’s cheek. “You know I’m stuck to you.” 

She sulks all the way home and Cereza surprises her with her favorite cake, to lighten her up. 

Jeanne pouts, but a small, almost unnoticeable smile crosses her face as she eats.

Cereza, as always, catches it. 

-

“Your hair is getting long,” Cereza notes, as she patches Jeanne up, at their kitchen island. The white glow coming from her hands healing the gaping wound that a second sphere had left on her earlier this evening. They only recently discovered that healing with light was the best way to heal any sphere attack. 

It feels… uncomfortable. Jeanne winces a bit, taking a drink from a small bottle of vodka that Cereza allowed, as she had requested that the drinking at home was to be done in moderation. “I hadn’t noticed.” 

Jeanne truly hadn’t. The past few months have been quite busy for both of them, and she had forgotten a hair-growing spell she had cast earlier into the year. Her then-cropped silver hair now reached the back of her legs.

“It looks lovely. You look lovely,” Cereza tells her, the light coming from her hands casting a soft glow on her face, and her features look so… delicate, in the dim lighting of their kitchen. “Why did you cut it, all those years ago?” 

She chews her bottom lip, wincing either from the unconventional healing method and the recollection of her first haircut, but she shakes it away. Cereza deserves to know even this part of her - one of shame and pain.

“I cut it while on the run from Balder, and it kept him off my trail momentarily,” Jeanne says, taking another swig from her ridiculously small bottle of liquor. She touches the tips of the strands. “It was difficult, it was my pride. The hair is the pride of the witches.” 

She remembers the witch hunts, remembers how the women around her were scrambling to cut all their hair off. It had broken Jeanne’s heart, and she resisted until Balder cornered her the first time. 

Jeanne had suffered countless terrible days and nights, yet the night she chopped her hair off sits on top of that list, along with other harrowing memories. 

That halts Cereza’s ministrations. “I never knew…” She says, her hand coming up to her own hair to touch the short strands. “I’m sorry, Jeanne.” 

She waves it off, wincing slightly, not missing the light’s healing powers but missing Cereza’s hands on her. “It’s fine, Cereza. It’s your body and it doesn’t matter now, in this day and age.” 

This holds true. Jeanne knows that Cereza never felt the same amount of pride she had for the Umbran heritage, but how could she, given the baseless ostracization brought about by their sisters? It had been difficult to understand, as a child, but growing older with more awareness of the rigidity of tradition, she understood.

 _And frankly, you look beautiful with short hair,_ goes unsaid. 

“No,” she looks into Jeanne’s eyes, and their faces are only inches apart that she can count the other tinier moles that scatter on her face, devoid of makeup. “I meant I’m sorry my father did that to you.”

Jeanne is stupefied, unable to speak, so Cereza continues. “This apology pales in comparison to what he did to you, all these years, but I’m glad we did what we had to do.” 

There was a certain kind of satisfaction in sending him flying after defeating Jubileus, and all the suffering that she’s endured because of him isn’t erased but it felt like a specific kind of vengeance Jeanne hadn’t been looking for. 

She covers Cereza’s hand with her free one, makes her meet Jeanne’s eyes once more. “None of it was your fault. You must know this.” 

It’s the best comfort she can offer, one that doesn’t let her spill out the myriad of emotions that she feels, but doesn’t exactly comprehend, about Cereza. 

Anger and aggression and despaired loneliness were replaced by love and fondness and utter devotion and Jeanne doesn’t know what to do with it.

“I know.” Cereza gives her a sad smile and it is so heart-wrenchingly sad, even more so up close, with the soft glow emanating from her hands. 

It might be the liquor, or slight nausea brought about by the lumen healing process, but Jeanne’s gaze falls to Cereza’s lips. A soft pink, even without the lipstick. _So soft, so pink,_ Jeanne thinks, filled with a familiar longing that she had only recently allowed to surface. 

She feels the heavy intent of Cereza’s eyes directed on her own lips, and Jeanne expects it to feel like a painful jab to her teeth, but it feels light, gentle. There is a tenderness in Cereza’s eyes, one she’s seen countless times before when it’s just the two of them. 

Jeanne has dreamed of kissing her for what felt like an eternity and being inches away from coveting what she’s wanted all these hundreds of years is so daunting, so frightening she doesn’t feel like she deserves it. 

Her heart thunders in her chest, madly so, and she’s felt less afraid walking up to God and putting a bullet in Her eye. 

It’s Cereza who moves, leans in.

Yet Jeanne’s luck decides to run out, or that Jubileus in heaven spites her for all she’s ever done, as bile rises up to her throat - her body reacting to the lumen healing mixed with the hard liquor to keep her mind off the discomfort - and she hurls her dinner into the kitchen’s rubbish bin. 

Ugh. _Fucking Lumen magic. Damn._  

A hand settles on her back, rubbing comfortingly, as she dry heaves, her body ridding itself of the magic and it’s working. 

After Jeanne washes her mouth with some toothpaste that Cereza pulls from her summon void, she sits with her head in her hands, a headache akin to a hangover starting to take over, feeling its heaviness and the tension dissipating into a ruined moment. 

Cereza kisses the side of her head and fetches her a glass of water and a mint, but neither of them speaks of what had transpired. 

-

No one talks about it and it’s killing Jeanne, actually, given that the break has given them a lot of time together. 

The night before they almost… kissed… remains vividly ingrained in Jeanne’s memory, and she curses herself, Cereza, Lumen magic for ruining the moment and now she absolutely doesn’t know when or how to do it. 

On one particularly difficult day, with Cereza looking absolutely kissable as she makes them dinner, she pulls out another piece of paper from her drawer when Cereza falls asleep, and Jeanne untangles from her embrace to write on it.

_Strategy: I will kiss Cereza._

_Action:_ __________

_Will take place on: _____________

She leaves it blank intentionally, foreseeing that she will, most likely, not follow through with her plans of doing so.

Jeanne foresees correctly. In the next few days, she promises herself every single morning that she _will_ kiss Cereza today and put an end to this ridiculous dance of almost unbearable tension every single time they look at each other or share the same space. 

Jeanne must be a coward, because every single time that she’s overcome with this intense need to kiss Cereza, she just… doesn’t do it and it frustrates her. 

It starts with seeing Cereza, passed out on the couch with Billie Holiday. Then it’s when Cereza hums as she makes dinner as Jeanne pours wine for both of them. Then it’s when Cereza has angel guts splattered across her uniform. 

 _On Cereza’s birthday,_ Jeanne swears, as she wakes early to prepare Cereza’s favorite pastry and breakfast items. It strikes her that it’s the first time they’ve celebrated her birthday in nearly five hundred years, with Jeanne the one to tell Cereza the date of her birth, a few months ago. 

 _Kiss her_ , the nagging voice in her head tells her, as she brings out a tiny box that’s been sitting in her drawer for some time. 

 _Kiss her,_ her body demands when she sees the pure delight in Cereza’s face upon unboxing a silver pendant of Cheshire on an indestructible silver string. 

 _Kiss her,_ the yearning is almost unbearable, when Cereza looks at her through her lashes, eyes glassy, positively glowing in the morning light. “Thank you, Jeanne,” she says, putting it on, with metal glinting in the sun. “It’s beautiful.” 

Despite the vice grip on her heart and her lungs, Jeanne finds her voice. _Kiss me_ , she wants to say, but this is Cereza’s day and Jeanne isn’t about to ruin it with her feelings. 

“I’m happy you remember Cheshire,” says Jeanne, inspecting it as well and appreciating how good it looks on Cereza. “But I suppose meeting yourself recently might have jogged your memories by a lot.” 

 _I wanted this birthday to be special,_ goes unsaid, but Jeanne thinks that’s not a valuable piece of information to share so she opts not to voice it out.

“That would be a severe understatement,” Cereza says, admiring the pendant and Jeanne wants to kiss her.

But she doesn’t, only melts pathetically when Cereza beams at her and kisses her cheek, at the corner of her lips. 

( _“Quick, open it!”_

_“All right, calm down, princess,” Cereza says, sitting carefully to avoid touching her skinned knees on the cold, cold pavement. Her breath mists in the chilly air and some snowflakes land on Jeanne’s lashes, but she ignores it to watch her best friend like a hawk. “You’re more excited about this than me.”_

_Much to Jeanne’s displeasure, Cereza’s growth spurt had arrived much earlier than Jeanne’s own and she’s a good number of inches taller._

_She was lanky and awkward, like a newly born fawn, and was the object of Jeanne’s affections._

_“Jeanne…” Cereza begins, then trails off, as she admires the complete tome of spells and techniques, one that Jeanne had produced herself by learning the incantations for physical reproduction of objects._

_“I reckon you wouldn’t appreciate if I tried to replace Charles again, so—” Jeanne is enveloped in a tight embrace._

_“Thank you,” She says, fervently, into Jeanne’s shoulder._

_Jeanne hears everything that Cereza isn’t saying. “You deserve it more than anyone in this clan. I promised I’d teach you everything I know.” She holds Cereza firmly by the shoulder. “We start training tomorrow.”)_

-

There are tiny firecrackers right before her face and she jumps into consciousness, her fight or flight instincts activated, but they’re harmless. They dissipate almost immediately, and suddenly Cereza is shaking her awake. 

“Well that seemed to do the trick,” she mumbles, “You only asked for three ‘5 more minutes’ instead of the standard five. I count this as an absolute win.” 

Jeanne falls back into bed, awake, but her heart thumps madly in her chest. “You are despicable and I despise you.” 

“Of course you do,” Cereza hums amusedly. “There’s some coffee and breakfast waiting for you at the table.” 

The overwhelming need to kiss her takes over Jeanne again and she still doesn’t know what to do with it, when Cereza looks gorgeous with her hair mussed and her sleep shirt crumpled.

 _Not yet._ Jeanne holds her ground, but presses closer than usual and mumbles, “you know I don’t mean that.” 

Cereza only laughs and smacks her behind. “I know. Now get dressed or you’ll be late for your meeting with Cheshire and the publishers.” 

“I’ll send them to hell,” grumbles Jeanne. _Making me pay so I can publish my own work._ She makes a mental note to make the lives of academic publishing house executives hoarding knowledge and wealth an enemy of Inferno. “If it weren’t for that boy…”

“Please, you enjoy his company,” Cereza retorts, and Jeanne hates that it’s true. “Lament academic bureaucracy later and get dressed now!”

-

Something feels off, and Jeanne doesn’t know what it is, but a nagging feeling that the entire order of things is thrown into disarray tugs at her instincts, even more, each day.

Rodin feels it too, and Jeanne spends a day amongst her books to get to the end of it. 

She finds nothing, but she does remember the fateful day they destroyed the Right Eye. 

Something terrible is going to happen and she knows it.

-

“Good morning,” Cereza says, sitting beside her to press a kiss to her cheek, as she always does. Jeanne isn’t even awake enough yet, and she burrows under the covers. “I’m heading to Central to go splurge a bit.” 

She grunts in reply, to which Cereza laughs at. “I’ll be waiting for you at the grocery so we can decide what to prepare for our party.” 

In all honesty, Jeanne hadn’t been too hot about it, having wanted to spend the rest of the day lounging about. Cereza, on the other hand, was very excited to have their tiny pool of friends over. Vanessa was also very insistent. 

“Will we buy Vanessa special food?”

“If she insists on making this party happen, she can bring her own blood bags and meat,” grumbles Jeanne, dreading tonight’s impending _Push Jeanne’s Buttons_ activities with Cereza and Vanessa, but still somewhat excited though she’ll never admit it. 

“Don’t be such a Grinch,” her best friend chastises, but there’s a soft smile on her face. “It’s Christmas.” 

Jeanne turns to face her, lying on her back, and she hates how her heart always stumbles when she sees Cereza in the morning light, with her night dress slipping off her bare shoulder. Her face is clear of makeup and Jeanne can see some pock marks and blemishes. 

She’s so beautiful and Jeanne can’t believe it.

“Cereza,” she says, overtaken by emotions she doesn’t understand. Jeanne wants to say something, anything, wants to untangle the messes in her chest and her stomach. 

Jeanne wants, and wants, and wants.

“I…” she begins, eyes falling to Cereza’s lips. _Want, want, want,_ Jeanne realizes this is the first time she’s allowed herself to want. 

“Yes?” Cereza prompts, her face open, vulnerable. 

Jeanne doesn’t respond, only looks away, the cloudiness of uncertainty closing off her heart. “I’ll see you at the Square,” she says instead, afraid to look at Cereza right now.

Cereza doesn’t say anything, only standing up to leave, but there’s something different in the way she walks away and Jeanne can’t seem to put her finger on it. The only thing she knows is that the tightness of her chest won’t go away until she tears her action plan and her pros and cons lists, sitting idly in her drawer, into pieces.

Jeanne takes out a new piece of paper, writing everything she wanted to say to Cereza, everything she could ever feel.

It strikes her that all her tangled emotions can’t be distinguished from one another, and all the piece of paper says is: _I have loved you for a long time and I still do._

 _Later_ , she swears, _later I’ll tell her._ After dinner. While they’re cleaning and Sinatra plays softly in the background. _Later, I’ll tell her how much I’ve wanted her._

They do meet downtown, later in the morning, and much to their luck some first and second spheres decide to wreck the city, confirming Jeanne’s worst fears about the universal disarray getting worse every day. 

The fear overtakes her when Gomorrah tears away from Cereza’s reins on it. A piercing roar makes its way into her ears and Cereza’s back is turned, and _oh, fuck, not Cereza! No, no, no—_

Jeanne doesn’t even realize she calls out to Cereza. 

The last thing she remembers is the unbearable torment and splitting pain of her soul being ripped from her body, limp, like a ragdoll lying on skyscraper’s windows.

Terrible pain, and the terrifying realization that she was going to lose Cereza again.

“ _Cereza_ ,” Jeanne calls, taking every fiber of her energy as the familiar blood-stained hands that grip her body and clasp at her feet, dragging her down to hell. An otherworldly panic rises to her throat. _“It wasn’t supposed to end like this!”_

She hadn’t even kissed her. She hadn’t even told her she loved her. The caviar remains unbought. 

It’s the last thing she remembers and she vaguely hearing Cereza call out her name. _For the last time._

 _So it ends,_ Jeanne thinks, _and I’m still a coward._

Then the void takes her into uncreated, endless torment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I PROMISE THEY WILL KISS IN THE LAST CHAPTER!!!


	5. i'm your silver line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t do that again,” Cereza mumbles into Jeanne’s neck. 
> 
> _Please don’t leave me,_ goes unsaid but Jeanne hears it, loud and clear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BITCHES BE DONE WITH THIS  
> BITCHES BE ME
> 
> Enjoy ;D 
> 
> Shout out to pri, izzy, and hj!

The first thought she has when she wakes is: _I’m alive?_

She feels droplets, warm and solid, against her chest and sees a familiar head of black hair rocking against her. 

Her second thought is: _Cereza_? 

She distinctly remembers being brought to the depths of hell. 

Her third thought is: _Is she insane?_

Jeanne wakes, fully, and Cereza - _Bayonetta_ , right now, all bravado and brashness, stands tall as if she hadn’t been crying for Jeanne to wake up. 

Rodin watches closely. Perhaps that is why. 

Her last thought before she reunites with her body is: _I love her and she crossed hell and high water for me._

-

It turns out that being reunited with her body was one of the most bizarre things she’s ever experienced and Jeanne wants nothing but to never have to do so ever again. 

 _It’s not every day you throw yourself in front of the woman you love_ , she chastises herself and realizes that if it meant to keep Cereza by her side forever, she’d do so again and again and again.

She’s regained some of her own strength to fly the jet and rescue Cereza and her father, whom Jeanne would have shot down with the jet’s ammunition if not for Cereza’s desperate: _don’t, not yet, we need him._

It’s him, of course, it’s Balder. Cereza calmly explains that the man that had taken control of Jeanne’s mind had been one controlled by the god of chaos. 

The livid rage and the dormant fear awakens in her but she knows in her heart that the fate of the world rests on his and Cereza’s hands and she lets it pass, for now. 

If that hadn’t been the case, she would have put a bullet right between his eyes, Aesir-possessed or no. After everything he’s done to the Umbra clan, Jeanne would place multiple bullets in his head. 

Jeanne trades her temper momentarily for the exhilarating feeling of spins in the fighter jet.

-

There is a twinge of sympathy when she watches Balder become the host of Aesir’s essence, strongly aware of what his possession means.

She realizes she has no sympathy for him, but she has sympathy for herself, the one in the past, one that will suffer by his hands. 

Jeanne watches Loki fade away, and the tender look in Cereza’s eyes that she’s seen thousands of times before.

-

The ride home is painfully quiet and the silence is deafening that Luka decides to play some music and talk their ear off. 

It extends until they’re home, and Cereza doesn’t even look at her and it hurts Jeanne, breaks her heart. She doesn’t know why, but it just… hurts. Like a bitch. 

Anger simmers the top of Jeanne’s head but she controls it, by some stroke of luck, and she’s too tired to even spend any energy letting it all out until she realizes that keeping the acute annoyance in is taking up more energy than she realized. 

It breaks when Jeanne walks into the bathroom, with Cereza taking off her makeup, tearing down the facade she puts on as _Bayonetta_. There were very few differences between her and the facade, but Jeanne knows her enough to nuance what sets them apart and what makes them alike. 

She looks at Cereza directly at the mirror, and Cereza still pretends she isn’t there. She scrubs at her face with shaky fingers and Jeanne can feel her scrubbing off the Bayonetta that had pretended she wasn’t crying in anguish when Jeanne woke but couldn’t speak.

“So are you going to talk about what bothers you so that you treat me like this, or will you act like a petulant child for the rest of our lives?” Jeanne says, lowly, dangerously, unable to stop hurtful words from tumbling from her mouth.

Cereza only spares her a glance, and it infuriates her even more. “You can wait, Jeanne.”

“No, I cannot!”

The blood in her veins boil as she continues as if she hadn’t heard Jeanne, and all Jeanne can do is simmer in anger with her arms crossed, leaning against the doorframe. 

Cereza finally finishes with one last swipe, then disposes of the cotton square, Jeanne, even in the haze of her anger, severely unprepared for the quiet fury and aguish in Cereza’s eyes. 

There was no _Bayonetta_ here, just Cereza. 

“I’m upset with you. Are you happy now?” 

That puzzles Jeanne. “Why should you be upset with me? I _died.”_

Cereza’s frown deepens. “I went to inferno for you. Your point being?” 

She feels her pulse quicken, anger and gratefulness and love and pain mix into a disgusting concoction pooling in her stomach. Jeanne should feel grateful but all she feels is the absolute need to tell Cereza that she shouldn’t have done that—shouldn’t have gone to inferno just to save her. 

“My point being is that you shouldn’t have done that.” 

Cereza huffs, crosses her arms. “I can say the same for you. Putting yourself in danger because of me—why? Why would you do that?” 

 _I love you,_ her head screams, but: “What would you have me do! Leave you to die?” 

Cereza’s cool demeanor starts to waver. “Yes! You are the only hope of the Umbra and now the eyes of the world are gone I—” 

“I don’t want to lose you!” Jeanne exclaims, and it tumbles, overflows and she can’t stop it, can’t hold it in any longer. “Cereza. I don’t want to lose you. Is that enough explanation?” 

It’s like a dam breaking. Jeanne’s heart stutters, the pit of her stomach begging for the bile to rise to her throat with her words. “I’ve lost you once, and I fucking despise the idea of living through that again.  Alone.” Tears brim at her eyes, and it’s still as uncomfortable as that fateful night. “You are all I have left, Cereza! What is so hard to understand about that?” 

Cereza is stunned silent. The bathroom echoes with Jeanne’s loud, booming voice, but it dissipates. They’re only left with the sound of the shower tap dripping. 

It’s a stalemate. She feels raw, exposed. Her revelation was practically an admission of her feelings and love and anxieties related to them. 

Neither of them moves and Jeanne doesn’t know if she wants to kiss Cereza or flee. 

She does neither, takes their shared towel off the rack. “If you will excuse me,” says Jeanne, her voice shaking. “I am in need of a shower.”

They’re used to seeing each other in various states of undress so it’s nothing new that Jeanne divests herself of her compression shirt and boyshorts. Her back is turned, away from Cereza, and she’s too upset and tired to even pay attention to the heat of her heavy gaze on her body.

“Can I help you?” Jeanne says, sliding open the glass door to step in. The vice grip on her heart tightens.

“May I?” 

She spares her a glance over her shoulder. “Pardon?” 

“May I join you?” 

Jeanne should say no. Not when her emotions are at an all time high. Not when she’s desperately in love with Cereza and doesn’t know how to tell her, doesn’t know how to show it. 

But Jeanne is tired. Tired of today. Tired of the endless battles. 

Tired of denying her own happiness. 

“I’ll start the water,” she says, feigning disinterest, betraying the thundering of her heart. Jeanne doesn’t look at Cereza as she sheds her own clothing, doesn’t look at Cereza as she follows into the shower. 

Then they’re face to face, inches separating their bodies, and Cereza looks gorgeous in the warm light of their bathroom. 

Her face bare, pink, under the spray of the hot water. Her often perfect hair limp with dampness. 

Jeanne loves her. Oh, how Jeanne loves her. 

“I’m sorry,” Cereza says, her eyes filled with remorse. Her easily flared temper melts away with every droplet of the shower’s spray.

“What for?” 

Cereza looks away. “You saw my father.” 

“I wanted to kill him,” replies Jeanne, honestly. Cereza doesn’t flinch with the honesty of her voice. “I could have.” 

“Maybe you should have,” she says, biting her lip. Her eyes are red, and Jeanne doesn’t comment. “Am I cruel for saying that?”

Jeanne lets out a small huff. “Well, he was responsible for many terrible things, so it’s fine,” she moves closer to run her thumb across Cereza’s cheek. She trembles, from suppressed tears and Jeanne’s ribs press against her heart. “You are allowed to feel conflicting things about him.”

Cereza leans into the touch, her wet skin warmer than the water. “And mummy, too… I saw her, again, that night…” Short-breathed gasps wreck her body and Jeanne moves forward to take her into a tight embrace, their wet bodies slotting together.  “I hate that nothing could have saved her, and nothing could have saved you those five hundred years.” 

Jeanne isn’t a fan of destiny, hates the idea of a predetermined direction, yet time moved in a circular motion that had only forged one path for anyone and everywhere. 

There were other ways of making use of that fate, and there were other ways of freeing herself and not subjecting herself to that fate alone.

Jeanne used to loathe it until it had dawned upon her recently that while it had separated them, it also brought them back together.  

 “He met his fate,” she says, firmly, then she softens. She reaches out to squeeze some shampoo into her palm to rub it into Cereza’s hair until it lathers. Her best friend hums at her ministrations. “So did I. Now I’m here. With you, in our home. I couldn’t have asked for anything else.”

Jeanne realizes that she has never spoken truer words her entire life. 

She can’t tell the tears from the hot water, but she lets Cereza hold on to her tightly and sob.

“Don’t do that again,” Cereza mumbles into Jeanne’s neck when the tears stop. 

 _Please don’t leave me_ , goes unsaid but Jeanne hears it, loud and clear. 

Later, sleep eludes them. 

“Did you mean that?” Cereza suddenly mumbles. Her head rests on top of Jeanne’s chest as Cereza holds her tight, pressing her ear above the steady thump of Jeanne’s heart. 

“Which part?”

“Everything.” 

Jeanne bites her lip. Wills herself to have more courage. She’s not a coward, not anymore. “Yes.” 

“How would I know?” Cereza asks, and in response, Jeanne only kisses her forehead lightly, sweetly, three times. “I’d follow you from paradiso to inferno, Jeanne.” 

Jeanne lets out a laugh. “You did. It puzzles me so. Spending five hundred years alone does that to you.” 

Cereza, if possible, snuggles into her even more. “But you’re not alone anymore.” 

For the first time today, Jeanne smiles, the vice grip on her heart disappearing. “I know. I hope you know I’d do the same for you and more.” 

-

_Fortitudo tears through the sky as Cereza sobs into Rosa’s chest._

_Time has run out._

_Jeanne knows there is one thing to do, knows what that would mean for her. Knows that her life surrounded by people will come to an end._

_She fears it, but she digs her dagger into the Cereza’s watch, unsure if they’ll see each other again, but sure that she will do absolutely anything for her._

-

Something shifts, ever so slightly, between them. 

As if each touch is more meaningful. Each glance, heavier. Each press of lips after handing a cup of tea, sweeter. 

They’re lounging on the couch, watching _Love, Actually_ , when Cereza asks: “have you ever been in love before?”

Jeanne feels beads of sweat forming at the back of her neck. “Yes,” she answers honestly. “Once.” 

“In all those five hundred years?” 

She laughs slightly, raising Cereza’s head slightly from her chest. “I’m not exactly the perfect partner, Cereza.” 

“Huh,” she replies, humming uninterestedly. “We have the same number.” 

Jeanne doesn’t know what to do with that information, worried that her heart rips out of her chest with how hard it’s beating. She squeezes Cereza’s hand, focuses on the movie, and says, “okay.”

-

“Seriously? That happened?” 

Jeanne pinches the bridge of her nose. “Do I look like I joke about these things, Vanessa?” 

The lilitu holds up her hands, laughing. “Lighten up, it’s your birthday, grandma.” 

“You’re older than me.” 

“I know. But that doesn’t make you less of a grandma.” She claps a hand on Jeanne’s back. “Your girl really loves you enough to go through all of that for you.” 

Jeanne looks across the kitchen to see Cereza pouring some more wine for their guests, the caviar demolished by Rodin and Luka, who is in the middle of explaining his most recent journalism endeavor which they all seem to humor for the sake of Jeanne’s birthday. 

Cereza meets her eyes when she stands, looking absolutely gorgeous in a casual, sheer, wine-colored maxi dress. She smiles, a simple quirk of the lips, but it’s all in her eyes. 

Jeanne feels her heart soar. 

“You look happy. Finally did something about that?” 

“I did,” says Jeanne, distractedly, still looking at Cereza. 

It hadn’t been in a way that Vanessa expected, but Jeanne has finally stopped allowing the fear to take over her. 

“You had it in you, after all,” her friend says, proudly, fondly. “I never doubted.” 

 

“That’s the last of it, we can just wash the glasses tomorrow,” Jeanne announces, sighs tiredly but she’s pleasantly buzzed and genuinely happy having spent time with their peers on her birthday, which had always been quite a lonely affair. 

Cereza looks like she’s about to argue about washing glasses the next day, but she walks closer to reach for Jeanne’s hand. “Fine, but you have to come with me.” 

She glances at the clock. It’s four in the morning. She tells Cereza so but she follows anyway and they take the fire exit to make it to the rooftop where the early signs of dusk are starting to show but it’s still dark. 

The moon is still out and Jeanne feels whole and powerful. 

She’s too busy looking up at the sky, basking in the gentle magic, that she doesn’t notice that Cereza is holding out a tiny box for her to take and open. 

“Happy birthday,” Cereza says, smiling, and oh, she was so beautiful and brilliant and ridiculously brave. “It’s our first, together, in some time. I wanted it to be special.” 

Her heart fills to open the box and see a grey sphere, with the silver Umbran seal. It’s a bracelet that Jeanne knows is from Tiffany and Co. 

“I know that you don’t have much attachment to your material items, except your motorcycles,” Cereza chuckles, then takes the accessory out. “So I thought to give you something you can wear, only that it’s functional.”

“It’s a lunar rock I threatened Rodin to fetch for me, with the seal. I know that the elders wear it around their necks as a tradition but you’ve never been someone who respected that,” she says, holding up the bracelet, just so that the light of the moon hits it perfectly. 

It spells _Jeanne & Cereza _, like the precious stone of the left eye, one they had engraved their names on when they were young and the nights of youth seemed endless.

“Sentimental, I know, and I’ll never hear the end of it from you, but I want you to know that I’m always—”

Cereza’s lips are as soft and as warm she’s always imagined and Jeanne expects that realization to destroy her but she feels powerful, like she can fly and take on Jubileus alone. 

Her chest feels like a dam breaking, all those years, all those days, all those minutes she’s spent loving Cereza - all of her: her past, her present, the person she becomes every single day - rush out of her in a desperate locking of lips on the rooftop of their building. 

It’s hot and delicious and everything that Jeanne has always wanted. Cereza’s arms make their way around her neck, and Jeanne cannot absolutely believe she’s been _not_ kissing Cereza for the longest time. 

Ten minutes of kissing Cereza and Jeanne can’t ever imagine life without it. 

Her face follows Cereza’s when she pulls away to breathe, and Jeanne still can’t get enough, can’t stop kissing her, presses kisses under her jaw and along the column of her neck and the gasp that Cereza lets out is so ungodly that it goes directly to her gut. 

“Took you long enough,” teases Cereza, between kisses. “What—ah—what stopped you?” 

“Fear,” Jeanne says simply, kisses more of Cereza’s jaw. 

“Understandable, glad you took your time. You were really funny about it, though.”

Jeanne groans into her neck and nips at the skin in retaliation. “Don’t remind me.”

Cereza holds her face, love and care and devotion on it that Jeanne knows is mirrored on her own face. “Alright, I won’t.” 

Then she kisses her, again, and again, and again, and again.  

-

It’s odd, getting to kiss Cereza all she wants without irrational fear holding her back, gripping her, holding her hostage.

 _You deserve this,_ Jeanne tells herself. _This_ being happiness. _This_ being the utter relief of having the love of your very, very long and then-solitary life love you back.

It’s refreshing to realize that she believes it, this time around. 

-

“Do well, you two, alright?” Cereza says, adjusting Luka’s tie and moving to Jeanne smooth her hands-on Jeanne’s blazer. “Knock their socks off and stick it to these boring academics. You’ll do amazing.” 

“Thanks, Bayonetta,” says Luka, though it seems as if he’s about to puke considering this is his first panel ever. 

It’s Jeanne’s ninety-fifth, so she doesn’t worry. 

“Take it easy on undergrads, alright? They’re learning.” Cereza tells Jeanne, specifically, laughing and Jeanne laughs too. It’s an infectious sound that she would like to hear again and again. “Make it hell for the chauvinists, though.” 

“That’s my goal, actually.”

Cereza grins and Jeanne melts. “I know.” She leans into to press a quick kiss to Jeanne’s lips before making her way to her reserved seat in front. 

Luka hums as Jeanne reels from the realization that it’s the first time they’ve ever done that. In public. 

“I assume you have questions. Won’t you be asking them?” 

He stops rocking in his feet to look at her. “Am I supposed to?” 

She raises a brow and turns away. “Good answer.” 

He claps a hand over her back, supportively. “Congratulations, though. You finally did it. The two of you.” Luka laughs. “It was honestly so painful watching you dance around each other, and I’m glad I don’t have to sit through that anymore.” 

She punches his arm, lightly, and he loses his balance.

-

School is back and Jeanne is drowning in essays her students had been assigned to write over the break, and her concentration was seriously being tested by Cereza, who has been pressing kisses to the back of her neck. 

“Later,” Jeanne tells her, feigning exasperation, but her resolve is slowly fading into nothingness. It breaks when Cereza pulls the papers away to set it neatly aside, as she sits astride Jeanne, straddling her. 

“How about now?” 

Jeanne’s brilliant mind fails her, short-circuits. 

“I love you.” 

The look of seduction is replaced by amusement, fondness, but mostly confusion. “What?” 

Jeanne gulps, clears her throat. “I love you.” 

Cereza kisses her once, mumbles it into her mouth. “I love you too?” 

She pulls away, with a raised brow, annoyance and doubt flaring. “Why does it sound like you’re unsure?” 

Her lover has the nerve to laugh. “I love you. You look like you’re about to faint.”

She grumbles, looking away, hiding her pout. “I might be.” 

Cereza’s hand brings their faces closer, and she mumbles it again into her lips to wipe away the pout, and it feels light, normal, herself. 

She loves Cereza and it is the most natural thing about her life. 

-

_“Do you like anyone, Jeanne?” Cereza asks, one night they’re walking along the courtyards._

_“No! That’s disgusting,” says Jeanne, lies through her teeth. “Do you?”_

_Cereza purses her lips, thinking, then shakes her head. “No. I don’t think I’ll ever like anyone.”_

_Before Jeanne’s heart can break into a million pieces, Cereza reaches for her hand. “Though if I were to like someone, I think it would be you.”_

_The blush that crawls up Jeanne’s cheeks is the same color as her royal regalia. She tugs Cereza to run so that she doesn’t see it._

-

“Jeanne,” Cereza says, under her, trying to move her off. “We need to do the groceries.” 

She only groans in response, her headache gone but there’s an echo of it that remains.

“You are my roommate first and my lover second,” teases Cereza and Jeanne retaliates with a pinch to her side that earns her a loud, undignified yelp. “You’ll pay for that!” 

Jeanne ignores her, burrowing into Cereza’s neck. “Five more minutes,” she mumbles, but raises her head to look at Cereza and how the morning sun makes her skin glow as much as the moon. “Good morning, Cereza.” 

“Good morning, darling,” Cereza greets, then kisses her, long and sweet. “Five more minutes. We have all the time in the world.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for being with me through this fic and for all the lovely words you left here, on twitter, and on tumblr! I’m @belivets on twt and sharpshocks on tumblr, and I’d love to talk! i’m always looking for ppl to talk to about video games and women!!!


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